Zero Tolerance: Jubilee's Story
by Jaenelle Angelline
Summary: Cowritten by Megalictis. This is our attempt at an adaptation 'from canon'. Marvel left a lot of gaps and inconsistencies in their 'Zero Tolerance' storyline we're just trying to fill in those gaps. FINISHED. Read, review please! Thanks!
1. Default Chapter

Author's Foreword:

I've been tossing around this idea for a while now. Anyone who's familiar with the 'Operation: Zero Tolerance' storyline would have to admit that Marvel has left gaps in their accounting of the events. For those who are new to X-Men fandom, you may not have seen the comic version of this, so this might help you get more involved with the X-Men and their world as well as provide a reference for any other Jubilee fanfics that may refer to her role during Operation: Zero Tolerance.

I've adapted the entire storyline for prose, leaning heavily on the comics as a guide, and writing in my own version of what happened in between the pages of the comic books. I don't mean to infringe on any copyrights; the X-Men and Bastion and all the characters in it belong to Marvel. My thanks go out to Scott Lobdell for a good storyline featuring my favorite character. He wrote it, not me. I'm just trying to improve an un-improvably good story! Enjoy, and comments are appreciated! Issue notes and credits appear at the end of each chapter.Jaenelle Angelline

Chapter 1: Taken

The setting sun cast long dark shadows over the cold, sere landscape. High overhead, a private, heavily-armored plane cruised, its engines whining as the craft lost altitude. It curved downward on a steady decline toward a cluster of buildings set deeply into an icy glacier face. Its windows were brightly lit from within as the occupants and technicians worked inside.

A set of large doors opened toward the base of the complex of buildings, and the aircraft glided in and hovered above the floor as its landing gear extended, finally settling to the floor on its wheels. As it did so, a group of men raced toward the craft from one side of the hangar bay.

On the other side of the hangar bay, a short, grizzled man with the name 'Dr. Harper' embossed on the pen in the breast pocket of his lab coat watched the cruiser with a scowl. _Bastion's private transport? Never a cause for celebration._ Nevertheless, he settled his expression into one of bland politeness and started crossing the hangar deck to the aircraft.

This base, and several others across the globe, were part of an international task force with resources pooled from governments all over the world, all aimed at finding the 'final solution' to the 'mutant problem'. Their leader, Bastion, had never been known by any other name. He considered himself humanity's last hope, the last line of defense for humans against the growing numbers of mutants. In all fairness, he was firmly convinced that he was indeed the only one who could save the human race from being overcome and eventually enslaved by mutants.

Hitler was firmly convinced that the Jews needed to be eradicated, too. It didn't make him any more right than Bastion.

As Harper cleared the prow of the personal craft, a hatch opened downward from the side of the cruiser and steps extended to the hangar bay floor. A tall, spare figure, his face currently shadowed by the craft's exterior trappings, emerged from the rectangle of light at the top of the steps and started down, glancing once off to the side to see the shorter man waiting for him. "Instruct processing to work quickly, Harper. I want to be airborne with this hot cargo within the hour." His voice was deep, and deceptively smooth. When he spoke at higher volumes, that smoothness cracked, like ice over a frozen pond, to reveal his harsh, turbulent true voice, symbolic of the roiling emotions of the man called Bastion.

Harper was surprised. 'Cargo' was what they had taken to calling the mutants (live mutants were 'hot', the dead were 'cold') channeled through the other holding facilities to become permanent, lifelong residents of Bastion's 'internment camps' for mutants. Glorified prisons, actually, run by people who had no particular love of mutants, people Bastion had hand-picked himself for their sometimes violent anti-mutant sentiment. Just as Hitler had chosen his elite from those who felt the same way, Bastion's hatred for mutants was reflected in his chosen. The four men who were offloading the long, glass stasis tube from Bastion's personal craft were handling it with just enough carelessness to display their disdain for the occupant of the tube but not carelessly enough to provoke Bastion's wrath.

Harper raised his eyebrow. "'Hot cargo', Sir? You're saying you have a live one?" This was surprising. With all Bastion's vaunted disdain for mutants, why would he be bringing one here, to his personal base, in his personal craft? Bastion had said on more than one occasion that the only good mutant was a dead one.

"For the moment, Harper, for the moment." He stopped the men offloading the stasis tube, and Harper looked into it. Floating serenely in the liquid oxygen within the tube, asleep from whatever drug Bastion had given her, oblivious to her surroundings and everything else, was a young Chinese girl, maybe her early or mid-teens, dressed in a long yellow trench coat.

Bastion placed a proprietary hand on the glass top of the coffin-like tube. "Her name is Jubilation Lee. I came across her while investigating Emma Frost's connection to Charles Xavier's mutant underground. After she's processed, I'll be taking her to the lab."

Harper stared at the silent form inside the tube. She looked so young, so innocent…how could she possibly be of use to Bastion? Bastion hated children only slightly less than he hated mutants. And with this one being both…Bastion would normally have had the mutant child disposed of as quickly as possible, as he had already done. Unless he had a special use for her. Harper felt a sudden irrational surge of pity for the young girl, who would shortly be waking up disoriented, in Processing, to become one of Bastion's mutant captives, and to end her life as his prisoner. And when Bastion had gotten what he needed from her, she'd be channeled to the mutant holding cells, there to become a plaything for the guards. She was pretty, and young. It wouldn't take long…Harper shuddered, and said softly, "And may heaven help her."

Bastion looked narrowly at the shorter man, staring at the girl in the stasis tube. Sometimes he felt that Harper was perhaps not as dedicated as he was to the cause of human salvation from the mutant disease sweeping the planet…especially when the mutant problem came packaged as attractively as this one. His guards would be waiting to pounce on her as soon as Bastion gave her to them as a 'reward' for faithful service. What did Bastion care? She was less than human, a lab rat to be used and disposed of. He spoke sharply. "I have it on the highest authority, old man, that if Heaven wanted _anything_ to do with her, they would never have made her a mutant." He stepped back, waving the men carrying the tube away, and they proceeded down the hallway toward the section of medical wing called 'Processing'.

"Boy, for a little thing, she's heavy," grunted one of the men, the one carrying the front of the tube.

The man carrying the bottom of the tube snapped, "Who cares? She's a filthy mutie, just like the rest of them. Just get her to processing, the sooner she's out of my sight the better." The four men paused and waited for a set of automatic doors to open, and carried the tube into a white-tiled medical lab. "Hey, Doc, we got a hot one here," the second man said. "The Big Man wants this one ready to go in an hour to another lab. Put a rush on it, okay?" he hefted the tube on an empty table and waited for the white-coated doctor to approach.

"So what do we have here?" the doctor hmm'ed as he attached drainage hoses to the stasis tube and waited for the liquid oxygen-and-sleeping-agent to drain from the tube so he could open it. "My. Young, and pretty. What's the Big Man going to do with this one?"

The second man shrugged. "Dunno. He just said he wanted to have her back at the other labs in an hour. The sooner we finish with this one the better. He goes away and we get left alone again."

The hoses sucked out the last of the narcotic-laced liquid oxygen from the tube and the glass lid retracted. The doctor, with a careless speed borne of long practice, swept up a pair of sharp surgical scissors and began to cut the voluminous wet folds of the yellow coat off. Shortly thereafter, the remains of the deep red uniform she wore came off, the same way (the material had been torn in some fight with something apparently much bigger than herself, and she had a gash on her right calf, as well as one shoe missing) and stripped her down to her underclothing. Then he lifted her out of the tube, dropping her on top of one of the tables, as the men removed the stasis tube, and picked up a barber's electric shears. With practiced strokes, he ran the shears over her head, trimming the hair off close to her scalp, leaving only stubble behind, in a buzz cut reminiscent of the hairstyles affected by those in a military camp.

Or a concentration camp.

Next to go was her underclothing. The sight of her nudity didn't bother him, or the second man, but the first man and the two others who had carried the tube were visibly affected. The doctor gave them a withering look before returning to his work. "She's a mutant. Not worth our time except to make sure she don't spread her contagion among the rest of us." He did a quick but thorough physical examination, marking things down on a chart, then indicated the two men. "All right. Take her to the showers and make sure she gets a chemical bath. No telling what kind of lice or filth she might have on her skin." He held out a syringe and a thin green plastic surgical dress. "After you're done, wake her with this, give her the drape and bring her back here. We'll get her in the tube and she'll be ready to go."

They wheeled the table out of the white tiled laboratory and down a short hallway to another tiled room, this time with showerheads protruding from the wall in small, narrow shower cubicles. They dumped her onto the floor in this room, under one of those showerheads, and left, closing the door. Once outside, they pressed a button, and the somnolent figure in the middle of the room was temporarily obscured by a light mist. Not of water; those showerheads were connected to massive tanks of chemicals, which would 'sterilize' the person being bathed, removing all bacteria and organisms from the skin. Once the mist had ceased, they opened the door and went back in. The first man jabbed the needle carelessly into the girl's arm, and depressed the plunger. "Come on, now, wake up."

Consciousness returned almost instantly, almost as fast as it had fled. Jubilee felt something cold under her, cold and hard; her next realization was that she was nude, and that there was someone behind her. She sprang up off the floor, her reflexes honed by her experiences with the X-Men, and particularly with Logan; shoot first, ask questions later. And since she was a living weapon…

Her paffs caught the two men by surprise. The concussive force behind her pyrotechnics knocked the two of them back into the flimsy shower partition behind them, taking that out as well as their consciousness. With no obstruction between her and the open door, she felt acutely the draft of cooler air that made her shiver, and almost as an afterthought Jubilee grabbed the green plastic dress and shrugged it on. It was way too short, and she could feel the air wafting up under the dress…but she ignored it and stepped cautiously out into the hallway.

Pounding footsteps caught her attention, and she saw coming up on one side, two heavily-armored men carrying guns. Big guns. Not as big as Bishop's, but certainly close! She reacted, flinging paffs their way, blasting them backwards. "Three words, chump: 'back' and 'off'!"

The armor they were wearing had to be really heavy, because the force of her blasts combined with their weight blasted them all through another set of walls. Jubilee thought about the quality of a place where the walls were that easy to break…and then realized that this was in her favor. Easier to break out of. "This can't be good," she told herself as she climbed bare-footed over the rubble and approached the two still bodies. "One minute I'm runnin' away from Mondo—or what passes for Mondo—and I bump into somebody called Bastion, and the next I wake up here. Wherever here is. And don't get me started on the buzz cut!" she yelled behind her at the first two men she'd taken out. She liked her hair the way it had been; it had taken her a while to grow her hair out to that length. And now it was gone, and she probably looked like a boy!

Well. Enough with the feminine vanity. She'd figure out how to get out first, get back to the Academy…and then figure out what to do with her appearance. This had to be a bad dream. Maybe she would wake up soon. Or not. "I could use my way-cool pyrotechnic powers to fight my way out, but there's no way to know how many of these guys are here." She bent, picked up one of the guns, and inspected it. "As much as I hate to give Emma credit for anything, she's always drilled into our heads to make do with what's on hand. Which means since you guys ain't usin' these weapons…" she inspected it, finding the readout that gave the charge status of the energy gun (guns she was thankfully familiar with, given her history with the X-Men) and slipped her finger in the trigger. Then she looked around. _Man oh man,_ _look at this place,_ she mused._ I just woke up and freaked out and that's always when my powers do the greatest damage._ She sighed. _I mean, it's not like I care._ A low moan from one of the armored men caught her ear, and she looked at him, feeling slightly guilty. _Much._ "Don't try and make me feel bad…"

"_…it wasn't my idea to be kidnapped_!"

In the control room, Bastion watched the events unfolding. He had expected his guards to be able to take her out; instead, with what looked like a minimum of effort, she had taken them out, picked up the gun, hefted it and checked it with what seemed like a long familiarity with the things, and was now hesitating by the body of the fallen soldier. He revised his plans for her slightly; he would have to keep her confined, isolated, off-balance; the minute she even had an inkling of where she was, she would take that knowledge and run with it. Watching her also confirmed what he had only guessed at until now; she was, had to be, one of the X-Men, or at least one in training. A mutant child-terrorist-in-training. He had a sudden terrible vision of her walking into a school full of normal humans, opening that long yellow trenchcoat and revealing a bomb, and setting it off in the middle of the school. Grimly thankful that she wasn't going to be able to escape (reinforcements were on the way) he continued to watch her on the monitor. She turned and started to walk away, saying disdainfully, "_Next time, get a job at the mall_." The fallen soldier behind her gave a weak, gasping cough, and his breath rattled in his chest once before going silent. Bastion watched dispassionately. Possibly a concussion, perhaps he'd hit the wall hard enough to kill him. Bastion didn't care. He was just another soldier, another casualty of the war between human and mutants.

What did catch his attention was the girl. She sighed, turned back, and actually put the purloined gun down as she placed her hands on the unbreathing soldier's chest. "_Who am I kidding?_" she muttered to herself as she started giving the soldier CPR. Bastion leaned back in his chair, steepling his fingers before his face, contemplating the scene unfolding on the screen. "Fascinating," he said to himself as he watched.

Jubilee pumped the man's chest a few times. "_C'mon, c'mon, I'm on the clock here_," she muttered. "_Breathe already! Look_…" she leaned in, held his nose, and breathed into his lungs. "_You wanna…_" one breath, "…_go around_…" another breath, "…_killin' people_…" breath, "_That's your choice_." She sat back on her heels and started compressing his chest again, thanking God that she had muscles developed by training in the Danger Room; that red-and-purple armor weighed a_ lot._ "…_but don't think for a fraction of a second_…" more compressions, "…_that you're gonna make a murderer outta me_!"

Bastion's eyebrows were climbing into his hairline. "She has to know that by staying there she's exposing herself to capture by reinforcements. Yet…she remains?" He pondered that as the events continued to unfold on his monitor screen.

The soldier woke abruptly, consciousness returning with his first breath. "Wha…?" he mumbled, shaking his head…and then he saw the female face looking down at him. He scrambled backward, frantically scrabbling for his gun with one hand while trying to wipe the feel of her lips against his. "Filthy mutant," he snarled, "What did you do to me?"

The girl sighed and sat back on her heels. "Saved your life, dude," she said, her face twisting in an expression of disgust at his blatant ingratitude. "And you're welcome."

Behind her, a voice yelled, "Halt!"

Jubilee jumped. Had she really spent all that much time trying to revive this soldier? She turned, feigning calmness as her eyes darted around the hallway, looking for a possible exit. "As in 'stop'?"

The soldier standing there was dressed in the same red and purple armor that the first one had been wearing (and what was it with red and purple? Were these jokers taking a page out of Magneto's book?) and had determination written all over him. "Step down, mutant. We have standing orders to execute all escaping detainees." They wouldn't actually execute her; Bastion had made it clear when he dispatched them that he wanted this one alive. But hopefully this one wouldn't know that. The soldier didn't think she was going to be a real threat; she was, after all, only a young girl. As soon as she saw that she was outnumbered, she would give up.

Jubilee's eyes settled on a round hatch on the wall not far from where she was. Hadn't there been something like that on the Death Star, in the first Star Wars movie? Except in that movie it had led to a garbage repository. Well, a garbage pit couldn't be any worse than where she was now. "Well, I ain't one of those!" she retorted as she whipped around, the soldier's gun in her hand. "I'm a leave-ee!" She aimed the gun at the hatch and fired as she ran toward it. With a metallic clang, the hatch popped off, and she dove into it. The gunfire splattered into the walls around the chute…too little, too late.

Bastion wasn't worried. The chute was a vent shaft that led outside. And there was nothing out there but freezing cold. If she didn't come back on her own, she'd freeze to death out there. He might not get what he wanted…but he could always go back and get another one where she came from. Of more concern was his guess about her actions. She had done exactly what he hadn't expected her to do. "Am I to believe that she risked her own life simply to save the life of my operative? A man who, given the chance, would surely extinguish her life?" he stared at the screen, letting the pieces fall into place, letting what he had seen settle in his mind. His one overwhelming question now was, "But…why?"

The chute was serpentine, taking so many twists and turns that all Jubilee could do was hang onto her weapon. It got steadily colder as she slid along, until suddenly her body impacted against a metal hatch at the end of the chute, and the hatch popped open, spilling her out into bone-chilling, horrific cold. She'd trained in the danger room for this, and for other surprises, and as she fell down through the cold air, she forced herself to go limp, so that when she hit the first bank of hard-packed snow she didn't break anything. Instead, she rolled, covering her suddenly goosebumped skin with clinging clumps of icy, wet snow. She tried to focus past the icy, cold air flooding her lungs, lungs that hadn't been able to fully expel the breathable liquid she'd been suspended in. That liquid chilled her lungs, and the resulting pain started to turn her vision black. Barely seconds later, she struck a particularly hard snowpack, and it was as if she had collided with a rock. For all her experience, she wasn't an X-Man. Not yet. She was still young, still a child. And the child retreated into darkness, unable to push past the cold, unable to think past the sudden cruel shock to her body.

Jubilee never heard the cavernous hangar bay doors open long enough to allow the tall figure wearing a heavy furred, hooded coat to slip out into the arctic cold. She never saw the man kneel beside her, never felt him slide an arm under her knees and across her back, never felt him carry her across the threshold back into the base. She never heard the heavy steel door clang shut behind her, sealing her away from the harsh environment outside…and away from freedom for a very long time. She never felt herself being returned to the tube, never felt the tiny prick of the needle in her arm that sent her into a deep, dreamless sleep; never felt the liquid oxygen fill the tube and pump into her lungs. She didn't feel the stasis tube being carried out to Bastion's waiting personal craft; she didn't feel the craft take off, taking her to an unknown and uncertain future.

End notes:

Dialogue and imagery for this chapter came from X-Men #343 (Lobdell/ Madureira/ Townsend/ Buccellato) and Generation X #26 (Lobdell/ Bennett/ Pimentel/ Harras)

Jubilee's perspective, and some of Bastion's thoughts, came from my own head. If you think I got anything wrong, or see something you'd like me to expand on, please inform me! This is the first time I've tried an adaptation from 'canon', so I'll need lots of feedback!Jaenelle


	2. Bastion's Lab

Chapter 2: Bastion's Lab

The prick of a needle brought Jubilee back to full consciousness. She stirred, coming back to instant awareness as she started coughing, trying to clear the rest of the liquid oxygen from her lungs. She doubled over, pretending she was choking, and when a dark-coated figure approached, she straightened up abruptly, lashing out with her hands extended in front of her, hoping to catch her captors off-guard as she had the last time.

Nothing happened.

She stared at he hands in disbelief as a mocking laugh rolled through the chamber. "Your powers will no longer work, child," said the deep, harsh voice. "This room is equipped with psionic dampeners. Your psionic control over your powers has been, for the time being, effectively 'shut off'. And you have no hope of overpowering us without your powers. So be a good child and do what we ask."

Jubilee crossed her arms, partly in defiance and partly to hid the fact that she was shivering. It was cold in here, and she only had the thin plastic dress on. And underneath it, she was uncomfortably aware that she was nude. "Think again, Pinky," she snapped. For some reason, Bastion's appearance reminded her of a cartoon she liked watching, 'Pinky And The Brain'. Bastion looked a little bit like Brain…but there was no way she was even going to hint that he might have even the intelligence of a mouse. Pinky was Brain's brainless sidekick. So. "I am not doing _anything_ you—Oww!" She jumped as the metal floor under her sent an electric shock through the soles of her feet. Bastion, damn his hide, had shoes with rubber soles that kept him from being affected.

"Care to try that again, child?" he said, his voice never changing tone. Jubilee continued to stand defiantly. This time, the shock was stronger, just at the edge of discomfort and not quite pain.

She glared at him. "That the best you can do, Pinky?" she snapped.

The charge that tore into her this time knocked her off her feet, and she screamed in pain as she hit the floor. With more of her skin in contact with the metal floor, the shocks had more effect, and Jubilee writhed for what felt like an eternity before the current was shut off. When she was finally able to notice things again, she realized she was lying on the floor at Bastion's feet, shaking with the involuntary spasms the electricity had set off in her muscles. Her face was wet with tears. She stared at the floor, unwilling to meet his eyes, unwilling to show him the tears on her face.

"Now, let's try this again." Bastion's voice had only bland politeness; there was no hint of satisfaction that he'd made her cry. "Get up, and put this on." He held out a jumpsuit, made of the same stuff her dress was made of.

Jubilee climbed slowly to her feet, biting her lip, then reached forward to take it from him. "Fine. I'll put the damn thing on, Pinky," she snapped, glad that her voice wasn't as wobbly as her legs. "Then you tell me where we are and what you want from me, and I get out and go home." She hugged the jumpsuit to her chest, lifting her head as she got her emotions under control, hiding her growing fear behind a mask of bravado.

Bastion sounded amused. "What makes you think I want anything from you, child?" he asked.

Jubilee rolled her eyes. "Think I'm stupid? _Duh_, even _I_ can tell you didn't bring me here for just a simple chat. We coulda done that like, back there at the Academy." She freed one hand and held up a finger. "One. If you wanted to kill me, you'd'a done that back at the Academy. Two, you went and had a nice little shower all set up for me that made my skin itch. I don't even wanna know what my rash must look like now." There was no rash, but she wasn't going to bring that up. She went on counting reasons off on her fingers. "Three, you didn't have your stooges shoot me after I SAVED YOUR SOLDIER'S LIFE!" she yelled at him, then continued at a more normal tone of voice. "Four, I woke up here. Five, you're giving me this…thing to wear." She wrinkled her nose as she looked at the jumpsuit. "Dude, this is ugly. Can I, like, get this in a different color? Green is _so_ not my favorite color."

"Just put it on." Was that a trace of impatience she was hearing?

"Whoa," Jubilee lowered the suit. "Damn, the stone does have emotions. Great, I was thinking I was talking to, like, a robot."

"Put it on, Ms. Lee. I am running out of patience. You don't want me to run out of patience." The voice had dropped an octave.

"I am _not_ undressing in front of _you_." Jubilee folded her arms. "Get out."

"I am not leaving you alone," Bastion said smoothly. "I have no interest in your body, Ms. Lee, only in the information in your head. One specific piece of information in particular."

"I don't care. I'm still not undressing in front of you!" Jubilee yelled at him. "No freakin' way—"

Bastion sighed, and snapped his fingers. Two guards, dressed in the red and purple uniforms (minus armor) came forward. She fought them, kicking, cursing, but they snatched the jumpsuit away from her before reaching for her. She struggled as one held her, and the other reached for the plastic dress and ripped it away. She dropped to the floor on her knees, her arms wrapped across her chest, trying to hide as much of her privates as she could. Bastion snapped his fingers, and the guards went back to their positions beside the door, although one stared at her with a predatory gleam in his eyes as he took his place. "Guess not everyone around here thinks we're all dirty, huh?" she snarled. _That's it, Jubes, stay angry. Logan deals with crap by getting angry. _Just thinking about him sent a pain through her heart. She wanted him so badly right now… _Frosty and the others gotta have realized I'm gone by now,_ she thought. _Sean and Emma will tell the X-Men, and Wolvie will come rescue me, I know he will. I just have to hold on till they get here._

Bastion broke into her thoughts. "Put the suit on, Ms. Lee."

Jubilee snapped angrily, "Tell Eyes over there to stop staring at me like a bear at a fat deer."

Bastion's eyes flicked to the guard, then back to Jubilee. "To some, a female body is a female body, whether mutant or human. I discourage it, but if it happens…He has a right to do whatever he pleases," Bastion said coldly. "Unlike you. You're a mutant, an abomination. You have less rights than an animal. You have no right to privacy, no right to clothing. I am being lenient in allowing you clothing. I suggest you take it. Before I change my mind." Jubilee thought for a moment about refusing, but the thought of being nude any longer wasn't appealing. She slowly reached for the jumpsuit on the floor, then spun around in her crouching position and turned her back to Bastion and the two guards. She could feel Eyes staring at her bare buttocks, and she squeezed her eyes shut, fighting the tears of humiliation that threatened to spill from her eyes. _Don't let them know what you're feeling, Jubes,_ she chided herself. _Be a rock. Be brave. Wolvie will get here and he'll make Bastion pay._ By the time she turned around, the tears were gone and the mask was back in place. "All right. I put the damn thing on. What do you want from me?"

She wasn't expecting an answer, so Bastion's next words took her by surprise. "Just information. I know you know where the X-Men's base is. All you have to do is tell me."

Surprise tinged her voice as she asked, "Then you'll let me go?" Not that she was planning on telling him anyway. No damn way was she going to tell him where to find Wolvie and Scott and Jean and the Professor and 'Ro…

"Regrettably, I can't do that," Bastion said smoothly. "But you will be enjoying my hospitality… for the rest of your life. If you cooperate, I can make that time more pleasant than it would be otherwise."

Jubilee burst into sarcastic laughter. "If you think that's gonna guarantee my cooperation, you got another think comin'," she said firmly, stepping up to Bastion and poking a finger in his chest. "Get…" poke, "…this," poke, "…straight," poke, "…right now, Pinky. No _way_ am I tellin' you where to find my friends. No way, no how. Never. You can do whatever you like. I'm _not_ telling." She stepped back and crossed her arms defiantly.

"You don't need to tell me, child. There are more ways than one to get what I want." Bastion said, snapping his fingers again. Before Jubilee could react, the two guards had come forward, grabbing her arms again. She fought, but she was no match for two full-grown men. Bastion stepped past her, to a counter along the wall that she hadn't noticed before now, and picked up a heavy, bulky garment. The quiet guard held her arms as Eyes slid sleeves over her hands and wrists, and it was only as he was buckling the straps behind Jubilee's back that she realized why the sleeves were so long, and why there were more straps hanging from them. A straitjacket. "No!" she cried, flailing her arms. "No, you can't do this to me...leave me alone…stop it…stop it…GET THIS THING OFF ME!" she howled, but all her protests were in vain. Eyes yanked the straps behind her back, firmly pinioning her arms across her middle with her hands on her ribs. She started to take advantage of the slack at the end of the straitjacket to wiggle her arms upwards, but he stopped that with a yank on the wide strap at the hem of the front and back of the jacket. The quiet guard kicked her thighs apart, pinning them open with his knees as 'Eyes' buckled the strap between Jubilee's legs, taking care to 'smooth out' the plastic over her crotch so there were no wrinkles before yanking it closed, so tightly the strap ground into her flesh. Tears sprang to Jubilee's eyes at the sudden pain, and she pulled her foot back and kicked him, as hard as she could. He stumbled backwards, eyes watering in pain as he held his injured arm.

Bastion ignored the entire altercation. "Bring her this way," he said, turning and heading for the door. The guard grabbed a fistful of the back of the straitjacket, causing the strap to dig in even tighter, and Jubilee decided that walking on her own would be less painful than being dragged.

They walked down a number of featureless hallways, only punctuated here and there by doors. Jubilee tried to keep track of doors and turns, but after six turns and three different hallways, she was hopelessly lost.

Bastion finally stopped in front of a door marked 'operating theater' and pushed it open. Jubilee took one look inside, saw a fully-equipped operating room, and started struggling in panic, kicking. "No…no…no…." Bastion stood silently by as the guard wrestled Jubilee into the room and dragged her over to a menacing looking chair, where she was soon immobilized by straps around her ankles, waist, hips, and over her restrained arms. Then a white-coated doctor picked up a heavy helmet-sort of thing that to Jubilee looked like some sort of evil torture device, and started to put it on her head. She thrashed her head, the only movement left to her, but Bastion grabbed her chin in a grip of steel and held her head still as the doctor buckled the straps to the helmet over her head.

When they released her from the chair, a bulky pack was strapped onto her back, and the doctor did something to it. Shortly thereafter, the helmet on her head began to hum and the pack on her back hummed as well. He had turned the power on. Jubilee squeezed her eyes shut, waiting for something painful to happen, but when no pain was forthcoming, she opened them cautiously. Bastion was looking at it, and her, with evident satisfaction, and said, "That will do, Doctor. Now, if you will put her under…" He turned to Jubilee. "You will find, child, that there are other ways of getting information than getting you to talk…" his voice was the last thing Jubilee heard as sleep overcame her.

Bastion looked at the doctor. "That worked out quite well, Doctor. How did you manage to find the correct frequency of her brainwaves that quickly?"

The doctor shrugged. "I've been experimenting with some of the other subjects currently held here," he said. "Sleep is something that comes naturally to humans."

Bastion turned to the doctor. "Make no mistake about it, Doctor," he ground out through gritted teeth, "There is no way this is a human. This is a mutant. An animal. An abomination. A beast. A useful one, to be sure, but she is nothing more than mindless animal flesh. I allow the guards and my First Strike soldiers the luxury of playing with the animals; but you had better not. Or you will not survive Operation Zero Tolerance."

The doctor swallowed hard at the clear threat in Bastion's voice. "Yes, Sir," he said meekly. "With your permission, I'll return to my duties." Bastion turned away from the doctor, gestured to the two guards to bring Jubilee's sleeping form, and exited the room. They followed.

This time, without Jubilee fighting them every step of the way, their progress was smoother. Bastion led the way down hallways and corridors until he finally stopped in front of a door marked 'lab'. A quick swipe of his fingertips over the fingerprint ID pad, and he was in, the guards following. "Put her there," he directed the guard, indicating a circular dais, surrounded by banks of computers and viewscreens. The guard put her there, and Bastion called into the shadows at the far end of the room, "Daria!"

From those shadows stepped an exotically pretty woman. Her shaven scalp should have detracted from her beauty; in a lesser woman, it would have…but in her, it simply enhanced her delicate features and large blue eyes. Physically she didn't look much older than Jubilee; Bastion had picked her especially for this job, thinking that if the woman who tended to Jubilee's everyday needs was close to her in age, Jubilee might let slip some small piece of information that he might be able to use.

The entire chamber was a recording device, starting with the helmet she had strapped to her head. Images picked up by the helmet would be channeled to the monitors, and what she thought would be displayed on screen for him to see. It was a mental rape, carefully designed to elicit the information he wanted. She no longer had the privacy of even her own thoughts. And since she didn't even know what the helmet on her head was for, she wouldn't be able to block her mind from putting out those images.

Nor did she even have physical privacy. The mechanisms under the circular floor would project the illusion of solid walls around her; she would think she was alone in a cell. Bastion had planned it that way, thinking she might talk to herself in her loneliness and boredom, and he might get what he wanted that way. The sooner he got what he wanted, the sooner he would attain his goal; capturing the X-Men.

"You called?" Daria's voice was soft, and she didn't look at Bastion while she spoke. Her attention was riveted on the straitjacketed figure lying on the platform. When Bastion had said he was bringing a subject here, a mutant who had some sort of information that he wanted, she had been expecting an adult. Not a young teenager…a child. Sympathy rose for the girl as she saw the cruel pinioning of the girl's arms, the strap pulled too tight over sensitive flesh, the dried tear tracks on her cheeks. This wasn't right…she was only a child. Why? There had to be some other way Bastion could get the information he so desperately wanted.

Bastion looked at his assistant, troubled. Maybe he had made the wrong decision. Maybe Daria, being closer in age to Jubilee as well as the same gender, would be more inclined to feel pity and try to help the child. Would she…but no. She was as much a culprit here as he was; she had been altered by nanotechnology to be a prototype of the 'Super-sentinel' he had created. Any attempt to help the girl would result in Daria's own death; either at Jubilee's hands, his own, or the X-Men's. No. Daria's only chance for survival after Operation Zero Tolerance was himself. If she stayed loyal, she would be rewarded. If she did not…well, he could always create more like her. She was expendable. So was the sleeping child on the dais. Everyone was, in this human-mutant war, except him. He alone held the key to saving humanity. He alone could destroy the mutant menace and bring an end to the mutants' dream of world domination. He alone, of all the billions in the world, was not expendable. So he had to take every precaution he could to avoid putting himself in danger.

Even from one small, frightened mutant girl.

He turned to Daria. "Activate the tactile imaging mechanism." Daria pressed a few buttons in the computer, and a transparent 'wall' sprang up around the perimeter of the dais. Transparent to him, that is; Jubilee, inside the image's perimeter, would feel it against her cheek as a solid wall. She would see it as a solid wall. And she would think she was alone.

"Turn on the monitors and begin recording. I want to see every thought she thinks, every dream she has, every memory she might pull up, no matter how inconsequential or fleeting. They could provide valuable clues. Alert me when she wakes up." Bastion strode from the room.

Daria sank into a chair beside the computer, spent a few minutes turning everything on, then defiantly stepped through the illusion and reached down to loosen the strap between the girl's legs. As she sat back down and started recording, she looked back at Jubilee's still figure in the middle of the dais and shook her head. "She's only a child…"

End Notes:

I got a little ahead of myself here, but I had to in order to provide a clear description of Daria, (who first shows up in Generation X #27) which is necessary at this point in the story. My apologies to Lobdell and the various artists who brought the character of 'Daria' to two-dimensional life; if I've misunderstood anything of her personality while reading 'between the panels' I'd appreciate it very much if you'd tell me!

For my readers; yes, I know that chapter 16 of 'How Far' gives a somewhat different picture of Jubilee's experiences during O:ZT. That's why I started writing this story to begin with. Between the various stories I've written about Jubilee with references to her time spent at the Hulkbuster base, there's a lot of inconsistencies, details I haven't kept straight from story to story. This story is going to be my attempt at writing a comprehensive, in-canon account of her time with Pinky; hopefully, others will find it similarly comprehensive. Perhaps enough so that it can be used as a definitive account of the actual event for other fanfic writers. Once I'm done this, I'll go back and revise all my Jubes stories (well, the more recent ones like 'How Far', at least) so that the details remain consistent. Eventually this will tie the 'Jaenelle-verse' with the Marvel-verse.

Stay tuned!


	3. Captive

Chapter 3: Captive

Darkness. Unrelenting darkness surrounded the small yellow shaft of light.

Jubilee sat at the edge of that shaft of light, staring into that ugly blackness. For some reason, the light reminded her of the light from a microscope, put there specifically to illuminate the subject on the microscope slide. She hated that feeling, which was only magnified by the bulky equipment on her back and strapped around her head. So she sat on the edge of that circle of light; not close enough to feel like the bug under the microscope lens, but not completely withdrawing from it to sit in the blackness either. Because that would be worse. She blended in with that blackness until she couldn't even see her hands; and that frightened her, because she didn't want to disappear. She desperately prayed she wouldn't just disappear.

After days—how many?—of staring into that blackness, the fear that no one knew she was here had grown all-encompassing. She fought it back, bravely trying to cling to the hope that the X-Men would come, that maybe she would open her eyes and Wolvie would magically appear to take her home. Every time she closed her eyes she prayed she would wake up safe. And every time she opened them, there was that damn unrelieved blackness.

The only breaks in the monotony so far had been when Bastion's female assistant, Daria, had come in to tend to Jubilee's needs and bring her food. Jubilee had flushed in shame when the woman had brought a basin shaped like a bedpan for Jubilee to relieve herself into; but despite Jubilee's tentative request to release her arms so she could take care of her own needs, the straitjacket hadn't been taken off and Jubilee was forced to humiliate herself further. "Gettin' your rocks off watchin' me, Pinky?" she had yelled once, but when no answer was forthcoming, she chose to ignore what she couldn't see and did what she had to do. _Forget the humiliation, Jubes,_ she told herself sternly. _Just concentrate on keeping the mansion's location away from Bastion._ And staying alive.

Thank god for the Professor. And Jean. And Betsy. And, reluctantly, Emma. Charles had showed her long ago how to block off her mind, so that her thoughts could be kept private; Jean had helped to reinforce the lesson, and so had Betsy. Emma herself had been in the process of teaching Jubilee how to make the shield around her private thoughts permanent. She didn't know how to do that, just yet, but she was trying to keep that psi-shield up for longer and longer periods of time. Jubilee didn't know how effective it was against this bulky helmet-thing Bastion had strapped to her head; but she guessed that he was trying to pick up her thoughts through it, and tried not to think of home.

Her main source for thought was the bulky helmet and pack strapped to her back, and the horrible cramps in her doubled, pinioned arms. If only she could stretch her arms out, just for a little while; the cramps were almost unbearable. If only she could lie down; the bulky equipment on her head and back made lying on her back or side extremely uncomfortable, if not impossible; she couldn't get more than a light catnap in. She could stretch out, take the pressure of her body's weight off her feet and tailbone by lying on her stomach…but that put the weight on her folded arms instead, and the position wasn't one that could be endured for a long time. She was exhausted, and tired. And because of that, it was getting harder and harder to maintain the psi-shield.

And for some reason, her nose and other parts of her body itched so much more now that her arms were pinioned. It drove her nuts. She couldn't scratch an itch, couldn't cover her mouth when she sneezed, couldn't rub her gritty, tired eyes, couldn't do much of anything with her body so restrained. It infuriated her. So she took refuge in her anger, aiming sarcastic comments at the air when she thought maybe someone might be listening; she was fairly sure that her cell was also peppered with listening devices. And maybe cameras too. So she sat half-in and half-out of that circle of light, waiting for something to happen.

The sound of the door opening caught her attention, and she looked up, expecting to see Daria. Instead, she saw a tall dark figure standing in the bright rectangle of light from the open door, and when she had blinked a few times, her tired eyes focused on Bastion's cold, closed features. Before she could muster up the energy for a biting, sarcastic remark, he raised his hand and let something fall from it. The object rolled, coming to rest finally in the bright circle she sat at the edge of, and light gleamed dully off the bright gold finish. Her mouth went dry. It was Scott's visor.

"His name was Cyclops." Bastion stepped into the room, and the door closed behind him. His voice floated out of the inky darkness as he looked at her, kneeling in the circle of light trying to swallow around the lump in her throat. "Our records indicate tht he was the first X-Man. He was leader of the genetic terrorist faction of mutants known collectively as the X-Men. He possessed powerful optic blasts, beams of force that could only be contained by a ruby quartz visor. The remains of which you see before you."

Jubilee stared at the visor. Could it be…? No, She would not believe that Scott was gone. He couldn't be. "'Was.' 'Posessed'. 'Could only'. Is it me, or do you have a serious problem with tenses?" Her sarcasm was obvious.

Bastion seemed unaware of it. "Neither, actually," he commented as casually as if he were discussing the weather.

Jubilee pushed herself up to her knees. "What, am I stupid?" she almost spat at him. "Just because you show me some beat-to-heck visor—" it was in pretty poor shape; the single lens that gave Scott his codename of 'Cyclops' was broken, and the finish was considerably dulled, "—I'm supposed to start blubberin' and tellin' ya everything there is t'know about the X-Men? Puh-lease!" Hey, Bastion could have salvaged it from the scenes of any of the X-Men's battles. Just because it was a recent design didn't mean anything.

"Believe what you choose to believe, child." Bastion turned away from her and pressed the button next to the door that would open it. "The simple truth of the matter is, the age of Homo Superior—"

"That's 'mutant' to you, buster!—" Jubilee shot back hotly as the door opened. Behind Bastion she could see the faint outline of Daria.

"—is over," Bastion finished his sentence as if she hadn't just interrupted him. He walked calmly out of the cell, and the door hissed shut, leaving Jubilee staring at that maddening, infuriating blackness.

And the visor.

Alone, Jubilee squeezed her eyes shut, trying to fight back the tears that slipped out from under her eyelashes anyway. When Bastion had showed up, she'd thought she was being rescued from the rampaging Mondo. Now she realized that not only did he want information from her, he was willing to go to great lengths to get it. Was this a ruse? Possible, Was Scott dead? The stalwart, stiff, sometimes too uptight, Mr.-got-his-boxers-in-a-bunch Summers? The man Jubilee had looked on with the same mixture of irreverence and respect as she would have looked on a beloved older brother?

She made up her mind. "Yer a liar, Bastion," she said aloud, even as tears spilled down her cheeks. "I know Cyclops. If he's gonna die someday, it ain't gonna be from a loser like you." She had to believe that. She had to keep on believing that. Because if she allowed herself to think, even for a moment, that Scott was dead, and her hope of salvation was gone, she was going to fall apart. And she couldn't do that. She must not give in.

Outside the illusion's field, Daria watched the tears spilling down those small cheeks, the defiant but despairing sag of the small shoulders, and ached for the girl. "That was cruel, wasn't it?" she asked Bastion.

Bastion turned to her. "It is a cruel world we live in, Daria," he said pompously. "Better that you should keep concentrating on the monitoring devices, and on maintaining the illusion that she is alone in a cell."

Daria winced as another fat tear slid down Jubilee's cheek. "But…" she stopped.

Bastion turned toward her, frowning. "Yes?"

"She's just…well…a kid." And was it really right to torture a kid?

Bastion tried to correct her misconceptions. "On the contrary, she's a mutant. And unlike the detainee we already have, Professor Charles Xavier, her psionic defenses are woefully underdeveloped." He turned back to the bank of monitors, hands clasped behind his back, contemplating the blank screen thoughtfully. "All I need to do is trigger a particularly harsh emotional reaction, and her secrets—the X-Men's secrets, are ours. Now, Daria, observe the monitors, and let us learn about the enemy firsthand."

On the monitors, blankness swirled, grew fuzzy, then resolved into a face. Jubilee's face. A bit younger than she was currently, but not by much. As the monitors dutifully played the memory unfolding, the speakers gave voice to Jubilee's thoughts…

_Dead. _ _Jubilee leaned forward on the couch in the formally-decorated room and propped her chin on her hand. What an ugly word. A short, ugly word that just stops. Dead. Even at the end of a sentence it's like a big axe that just cuts off the thought. 'Illyana is dead.' God, I hate that word. Almost as much as I hate funeral parlors. _

_ The door at the end of the room opens, and a male voice queries, "Jubilee?"_

_ She looks up. Oh, great. Scott Summers as grief counselor. Nevertheless, she manages a weak, "Hey."_

_ Scott walks across the room. "You okay?"_

_ Well, that was giving, Jubilee thought. Aloud, she said, "'Course." In the next breath, her natural tendency toward truth asserted itself. "Course, NOT!" Duh, she thought. In an attempt to steer the conversation away from herself, she said to Scott, "Wolverine is the one I'm worried about. I've never seen him…ya know…cry before."_

_ Scott had crossed to the window and looked out. With a gentle smile, he turned away from it and looked at her. "Now you finally know what we've all known for quite some time. Underneath that adamantium skeleton, Logan is a marshmallow." Scott's tone sobered as he sat down on the couch beside her. "But seriously…this might not necessarily be my place to tell you this, Jubilee. Logan is a private person, so I don't know how much you know…but Wolverine has a daughter of sorts, named Amiko. Losing Illyana so soon after his love Mariko's death must have been particularly painful. Especially for a guy who, as far as we know, doesn't have a lot of experience with long term relationships."_

_ It was on the tip of Jubilee's tongue to bring up her own long-term relationship with Logan, but her mind redirected her down a different path. "A daughter? Wow. Does that mean he has to worry about her getting the Legacy virus that kills mutants like Illyana did?"_

_ Scott was quick to correct her. "No, she's his foster daughter. She lives in Japan." Unbidden, Jubilee's mind conjured up a mental image of a sweet-faced Japanese girl with straight black hair and Logan's blue eyes. The thought stirred up a feeling of jealousy that Logan might be closer to another girl than he was to her, so she redirected the topic of conversation. "Hey…"_

_ Scott looked at her. "'Hey', what?"_

_ She frowned at him. She couldn't remember having a conversation with him before that hadn't been for something he perceived she'd done wrong, like rollerblading in the mansion. "Are you and me like, having a conversation?"_

_ She could see Scott's brain somersaulting behind his eyes, trying to track the topic switch. "I suppose we are," he said finally. "Is that odd?"_

_ Jubilee looked at him, seeing him suddenly as not just an annoying older male, but a real person. "Just different," she shrugged. "Yer, like, leader of the X-Men and I'm just a little nervous…"_

Daria sighed as the monitors faded to blankness. "That's it, sir. That's as long as that memory lasts." She realized Bastion wasn't paying attention. "Sir?"

Bastion was thinking hard about the conversation he'd just heard. So Scott Summers wasn't as close to her as he had thought. He'd assumed since he was the leader, the child would look up to him…but her concern was all for this 'Wolverine…' he settled back to plan his next move.

End Notes:

This came from Generation X #27. More from that issue to come in the next chapter, so hang on out there! We're on a roll!


	4. Illusions

Chapter 4: Illusions

Jubilee stared at the revolting mess on the floor in front of her. "No way," she said finally, her voice flat. "Like, yuck. Peas. I hate peas. And how do you expect me to eat, anyway? With my face in the food? I'm hungry, but I ain't that hungry! I'd rather starve to death before I play yer stupid mind games!" She vented her feelings by lashing out with her foot. The bowl of food went flying, and Jubilee's aim proved true. She got Bastion square in the chest with the bowl and cup.

Bastion simply raised one eyebrow and started to brush disdainfully at the mess clinging to the front of his clothing. "How ironic." He lifted a sticky finger to his mouth, licked it thoughtfully. Maybe if the child saw him eating it, she would think it was safe. Maybe then he'd have better luck getting her to eat the pentothal-laced food. He looked at the tip of his finger as he said, "That's almost exactly what Bishop said."

She had turned away from him, staring at the rear 'wall' of her cell, but at the mention of Bishop's name she turned, her eyes wide. "Bishop?" Then she realized she was showing too much emotion, reacting too strongly to his comment, and she turned back to face the wall again.

Bastion didn't let his grim satisfaction show in his voice. Staring at her back, he said, "Before I killed him." Jubilee didn't turn around, but her shoulders hunched a little, in misery.

On the other side of the one-way illusion, Daria frowned in sympathy. The child looked so miserable, so lost and lonely and alone…And the emotional butchering Bastion was doing to her was cruel, plain and simple. _I'm going to be sick,_ she thought unhappily. _I know I should do something to help her…but I can't. I can only watch. Watch as he pushes her buttons…_ She turned her attention to the wisp of memory Jubilee's mind had dragged up at the mention of Bishop's name…

_The X-Men were congregated around Ororo as she introduced the tall, dark-featured, mountain of muscle named 'Bishop' to the rest of the X-Men. "…and this is Jubilation Lee."_

_Bishop raised an eyebrow. "The last X-Man."_

_Jubilee blew a bubble with her gum. "Really? Cool." She tried to hide her surprise from the others. 'cording to everybody else, this dude is from some eighty years in the future. So if he says I'm the last X-Man, I guess he knows what he's talkin' about. …_

Daria stared at the machinery, dutifully carrying out its function. _It appears this is Lee's introduction to the X-Man Bishop. More information, more details for Bastion to linger over, before Operation Zero Tolerance begins in earnest?_ She schooled her features into one of bland attentiveness, but she couldn't help but feel a prickle of anger. It was impossible for the child to block off all her thoughts all the time; she hadn't been trained in that yet. Which was why she was in that circle, and not Professor Charles Xavier. And while she was alone, Jubilee thought of anything to keep her mind away from the topic of home.

Daria already had dozens of recordings of Jubilee's thoughts. She had seen the girl's early life, she knew about Jubilee's gymnastics training, her childhood in Beverly Hills; had seen Jubilee's parents murdered, had seen the child's hopelessness and despair as she was shuttled into the state system, from an orphanage to finally a foster home hat was truly horrible; while the foster parents assigned to Jubilee hadn't been physically abusive, the emotional neglect had been staggering. It was no wonder Jubilee had finally chosen to run away, desperation driving her into becoming one of the many homeless people living on the streets of California.

The X-Man named Wolverine had saved her from all that. Daria had found herself smiling as the tiny, scrappy little girl had found and helped a prickly, gruff, initially hostile older man. She watched as Jubilee's sunny smile and easy disposition had cracked Wolverine's armor, had allowed her into the dour man's heart. She had seen the memories of their times together, good and bad, and her heart contracted painfully at the thought that those two would never see each other again. It wasn't fair. Jubilee was too young, she didn't deserve this…!

They had also recorded many of Jubilee's more private thoughts . The discomfort from the too-tight strap had channeled her mind down into memories and fanciful imaginings that Daria wouldn't have wanted anyone to see had they been in her mind. But Bastion watched them all, even the more private, personal ones. It was just…sick. Wrong. And she tried not to think about her own part in perpetrating this wrongness, but as time went on and days went by, and she saw how cruelly the child was being treated, her conscience grew less and less easy to live with.

She turned her attention back to the unfolding scene in the illusion chamber. Bastion had given her a little datacard with a simulation he had put together himself, with instructions that she was to begin playback when he asked her to open the 'window'. She didn't know what was on that datacard…didn't want to know either, but it wasn't like she was going to have a choice…

Jubilee had turned to face Bastion. "For the record, Pinky," she spat, anger evident in every line of her body and every word she spoke, "I'm already tired of this game. Ain't no way, no how, yer gonna make me believe ya went and killed all the X-Men when I was sleepin'. I don't care how many visors you throw at me! I ain't—"

Bastion grabbed a handful of the wiring attached to the bulky mindsifter on her head and yanked her head back so far her mouth opened involuntarily. "I didn't say they were all dead," he crooned, his voice oily with satisfaction. What he was about to do would surely break her will. "Yet." If her bond was as strong as he had suspected from looking at all those memories she had of the X-Man named Wolverine, she would definitely break with this little simulation he had put together. "Daria, open the window."

On cue, a section of the wall started to slide up, and Jubilee started to turn automatically. "Hope I got one with…a…view…omi…" she turned fully around, and stared at the image displayed through the window for a full moment, stunned and shocked into speechlessness as tears glazed her eyes. "Wolvie…?" she whispered in a small, tight voice.

He can't hear you," Bastion said coldly. Jubilee barely heard him, her attention fixed on the screen. Logan was held captive against the back wall of a cell, strapped into some sort of machine with electrodes bristling out of attachments all over his body. His yellow and blue costume was torn, his face crusted with old and fresh blood from his nose and mouth, but he still looked defiant.

Bastion heard a recorded male voice asking, "Mutant designate: Wolverine, we will ask you again: what is the prime location of the gene terrorist faction known as the X-Men?"

On the screen Wolverine growled out, "and I'll tell ya what I told ya before, bub. Kiss my Canadian ass!"

The voice snapped, "So be it!" and yanked a lever. Electricity crackled, radiating down those electrodes from the generator in front of him, and Wolverine threw back his head and howled. It seemed to go on for an eternity; Jubilee's soft cry of denial lost in the sound of the maddened howls of agony. She remembered all too well what that had felt like…and with Wolvie's enhanced senses, what was horribly painful for her must have been almost unbearable for him. Tears were streaming down her cheeks, and she lowered her eyes, despair written in every line of her body. It was over. Somehow, they had gotten Wolvie, and he was being tortured. Her best friend in the world. As if from a distance, she heard the levers turn off, and in the sudden silence, she heard Wolverine's voice… "P-please…stop…"

She jerked rigid as realization crashed over her in a wave. It was a trick. Another hoax. An illusion. Whatever. Her shoulders started to shake with suppressed laughter.

She heard Bastion say, coolly, "You can end this suffering, Miss Lee. Just tell us what we want to know." He ordered the window closed, his voice filled with grim triumph at the thought that she had been taken in by his ruse. "Tell me. Tell me and I'll let you go free." He wouldn't…but _she_ didn't know that. His lips curved in a grim smile as he saw her shoulders were shaking…and then the smile disappeared as her head came up, and he saw she was _laughing. _

The look on his face was priceless. Daria, outside the illusion field, had to bite her lip to keep from laughing as well. _Nothing. Not a single image. She's onto us._ She couldn't help but be irrationally glad Jubilee had figured it out. "God, I love this girl," she whispered to herself as she ejected the simulation card Bastion had been so proud of and was now useless. Behind her, she heard Jubilee say, "Ya almost had me there, huh! You almost convinced me he was the real Wolvie, getting' fried! But ya had to go and push it too far! Too flamin' freakin' flappin' far!"

Bastion had a look of chagrin on his face, his eyes cold as he looked at this little girl who defied him with every step, who seemed to have him all figured out. "Oh, really." His voice had an edge of anger in it. "How is that?"

Still laughing, Jubilee said, "It was the 'please stop'…any Wolverine I know would die before he'd beg!" And with that realization, the nagging fear at the back of her mind was silenced; the fear that that might really have been Scott's visor back there. It was an artifact from one of their battle scenes. She didn't know how Bastion had gotten it, nor did she care. The important thing was that Bastion _did not_ have the X-Men, had _never_ had them, and if she stayed firm, he _would never_ have them. She strengthened her resolve. To relieve her feelings, she kicked the bowl on the floor again, splattering more food on Bastion's tunic. "Ya thought ya had all the answers, didn't ya? Ya thought you were bein' so shrewd…the big, smart, resourceful human…lording it over the frightened little nobody mutant!"

Kicking the bowl wasn't doing anything to relieve her feelings. She switched targets.

"You…" her foot impacted with Bastion's cheek, "…were…" kick, "…wrong!…" kick. Her kicks weren't leaving any apparent marks, but she didn't care. "Before I became a mutant, before I learned I was a mutant, I never even knew there was a difference between human and mutant! I thought the idea of somebody hating somebody else for no good reason was stupid!" she stared him down. "Is this all ya can do, Bastion? Is this what the big fight is about? Humans' right to punish—to torture—to hate! Is that what you're fighting for? If it is, you can keep yer stinkin' humanity!"

Bastion's eyes turned fiery with anger…and Daria, in the main chamber, started as an image swirled on the monitors. "Wha—?" She didn't understand what she was seeing at first. A hand, but like no hand she'd ever seen. A mechanical hand and arm, much like a prosthetic one designed for those who had had limbs amputated. Some sort of free-flowing pink stuff crawled up the limb, and began to mold itself to the mechanical construct, covering it, crawling fluidly over everything until it had solidified in an uncanny resemblance of a human hand, complete with lines on the palm and whorls of fingerprints on the tips. And then the image shrank, the angle widening, until she could see the same thing happening to the entire metallic construct, which she could now recognize as being distinctly man-shaped. The synthetic flesh ran upward, covering the face, and the features that emerged as the substance solidified were those of Bastion.

"At last…" she heard Bastion's voice say as he looked at his hands.

Daria stared. This couldn't be from Jubilee's mind… "What am I looking at…?" and in the next breath, it had vanished. "Gone?" She frowned. Those had to be Bastion's memories, but… "But…how?"

She turned to ask Bastion a question, and the words died on her lips as she saw his fist rise, then fall with a sickening crack on the child's upturned face. Jubilee's nose and mouth bloodied instantly from the force of the blow not surprising, since the underlying structure wasn't bone and flesh and muscle, but unyielding, unforgiving metal. Jubilee barely had time for a gasp of pain before she hit the floor with a _wham!. _She barely had time to blink away the stars of pain swimming in her eyes before Bastion was on her, wrenching her head up, glaring at her with cold blue eyes that suddenly seemed less than human. "My humanity, child," he said icily, not bothering to hide his rage, "is the only thing keeping you alive." He dropped her, pushing her contemptuously to the floor, then turned and opened the cell door.

She yelled after him as he left, "Yeah. Right. Do what you want to me, Bastion! It won't matter! It won't ever matter! I won't break! I'm never gonna break!" The door hissed shut behind his retreating back, and she relaxed, leaning her head on the bulky equipment for a brief moment before the discomfort would cause her to move. She spat a clot of blood out of her mouth, and muttered, "I showed him."

Outside the cell, Bastion approached Daria and started to remove the food-stained tunic he had worn in. Daria moved to help him automatically, her mind still busy absorbing what she had seen. "Sir…about what I saw…?"

His voice was harsh…and she was suddenly terribly aware of the slightly mechanical, grating quality to it. Funny, she'd never noticed it before. "You saw nothing, Daria. A past that never was."

She said, "Yes sir," automatically. Obedience had been too firmly ingrained into her for her to ignore it. She gathered the tunic together as he continued, "I want all the information you've gathered on the subject and have it processed within the hour. Then alert Harper and the rest of Operation Zero Tolerance that we move on the X-Men we've identified in Hong Kong the moment they are in the international flight zone. Tonight."

Daria's eyed widened in astonishment. "Tonight? That's some time ahead of schedule, sir. Are you sure you want…to risk…" She trailed off, for Bastion had paused in his path toward the door to look at her with eyes like blue steel. She swallowed hard. "Right away, sir."

End notes:

The source material for this chapter came from the latter half of Gen X #27. I did, however, take some liberties, especially with the end. Jubilee's 'I showed him' scene in the cell is actually the last panel in the issue. I juxtaposed that with Daria and Bastion's conversation because it fit in better with the flow of the story. My apologies to Lobdell and the artists, Bachalo/Mhan/Vey/Hanna, for my mangling of your work!

Thanks for reading, everyone, and stay tuned for the next chapter!


	5. Operating Room

Chapter 5: Operating Room

When she opened her eyes next, something was different. The floor of the cell wasn't metal now; it was concrete. They must have moved her to a different cell while she slept. Something must have been in the food she had finally, reluctantly, eaten because the hunger cramps in her belly were so sharp they were a constant physical pain. Soon after eating, she had slipped into a dreamless sleep, and now she was—where? She explored the dimensions of the cell. Small, but not as small as the one she'd been in before. Cement, or some rough, cold substance. Thank god she had this jumpsuit, and the kneepads. Someone out there wanted her intact. "No prizes for guessing who," she muttered to herself.

The door opened again, and Jubilee looked up, expecting to see Daria, or Bastion. Instead, one of the red-and-purple Magneto knockoffs came in. Jubilee stared at him warily, tensing as he approached her, but all he did was move around behind her, and begin to unstrap the pack and the mindsifter from her head. It was a relief to have both bulky items off her; her chin was raw from the pressure of the strap, and her shoulders felt as though she'd been carrying around every schoolbook she had on her back for…how long now? Then the man exited, leaving her alone in the cell.

She arranged herself a bit more comfortably, relaxing as much as she could in the straitjacket. With the mindsifter off her head now, her thoughts were finally hers again, and she slipped into a quiet contemplation of her current situation. _Feels like I've been here in the dark for days._ She shifted position. _Trouble is, I'm, like, totally clueless as to where 'here' is._

She sighed heavily, biting her lip. _What I wouldn't give for the ol' canucklehead t'come slashin' through, braggin' 'I'm the best there is at what I do, bub—an' what I do ain't pretty!' But ever since Bastion kidnapped me he's done his best to convince me he's beaten the X-Men. I just gotta hang tough—I'll get outta this somehow…I hope._

For what seemed like an eternity, she stared straight ahead at nothing, at the darkness around her. Loneliness gripped her mind in its cold fist, and she had to fight the tears that threatened to spill from her eyes. It was actually something of a relief when she heard the door open again, and Bastion's measured footsteps crossed the cell, coming to a stop somewhere behind her. "You there, Bastion?" she said coolly, not even bothering to turn around. Who else could it be? "How'm I supposed to scratch my nose if ya won't let me outta this stupid straitjacket?"

Behind her, Bastion grabbed his clenched fist, to keep from belting the arrogant, defiant, frustratingly uncooperative little girl. "A coy ruse, Jubilee," he said, his voice betraying none of his frustration, "but futile. Any attempt to escape would surely result in your termination. After all, what is the life of one mutant in the face of humankind's survival?"

Jubilee sniffed disdainfully. "I guess that's what your Zero Tolerance group is all about, huh? Survival. You or us. Humans or mutants. Guess you never gave thought to tryin' to live together?"

Again Bastion had to clench his fist to keep from hitting her. What was it about her that infuriated him so much? Was it her attitude? Her defiance? He didn't know, but he was going to do something about it, and soon. He needed that information, and he had lost patience with the mindsifter. Perhaps a different form of persuasion would work… "You simplify and belittle my mission, girl. Do we not have the right—no, the responsibility—to protect our future? Mutantkind, through the very laws of nature and evolution spells the gradual extinction of the human race. I cannot allow that to occur."

Jubilee looked up at him. "And what's gonna happen once your plan kicks into high gear...mutant registration? Relocation camps?"

Bastion turned away from her. He knew what he would do; put the child in the middle of her worst nightmare. Make her worst fears come true. She would be so desperate for home and friends that her guard would come down, and that would be his opportunity. "I wouldn't concern myself with that, if I were you, child, for it has already begun. All that's left for you and your genetic ilk to do is pray." He stalked out of the cell, a grim smile on his face.

All those images he'd gotten from her mind were of some use, after all. It gave him a window into her weaknesses, her worst nightmares, the worst things she could imagine happening to her in this place. Some of them weren't far off the mark from what actually happened. Not that Bastion had ever participated in those things; he had no need to, being an android; but just the threat could instill submission and obedience in the mutant cargo that had already passed though Processing and into his facility. And if the threat didn't do the trick, well…there was no shortage of his First Strike guards and other employees willing to actually carry out the threat. And of course, there were the doctors.

He had hired doctors as per the government's stipulations; they wanted to be sure the mutant prisoners weren't kept in unbearable, intolerable conditions. The government insisted that although they might be mutants, they were still humans, and were entitled to humane treatment per the Geneva Convention. Bastion thought this was nonsense; but he hired the doctors anyway, mostly those who had lost their practice through mismanagement, lackluster attitudes, or patient abuse, and were on the verge of losing their licenses. He'd made it clear that if the doctors did anything other than what they were told to do, he could ensure they did lose their licenses and livelihoods. As the holding facilities acquired more and more inmates, he'd found that a sort of prison hierarchy had sprung up; a hierarchy where the guards did what they wanted, when they wanted, even including abusing the mutants. Bastion had no problem with that; in fact, the prisoners' constant state of terror was beneficial to him; there were no uprisings. So the guards did what they wanted to do, and the doctors patched the mutant prisoners up and sent them back to the guards. He let them do what they wanted, except when a guard went too far and killed one of the prisoners, causing the government to ask questions. When that happened, the guard would be 'killed' in a prison riot. Since most of them had personalities that didn't endear them to anyone, no one would notice him missing.

The doctors weren't as easy to dispose of. Someone _would_ look for them, and questions _would _rise. So Bastion had left orders that certain activities the guards favored were not to be practiced by the doctors; but there were other things doctors could do, that wouldn't leave a mark but would break the prisoners…he decided to give the arrogant young X-Man a taste of what life here would be like without his protection. After that, she would be more inclined to cooperate, in exchange for having the guards leave her alone.

He strode into the guards' mess, his mere presence instantly capturing the attention of those assembled there to eat. The room lapsed into silence before he even had to ask for it. "There is a girl in cell 233," he said, his voice carefully modulated to filter to all corners of the room. "She has information I want, but so far my efforts have been unproductive. You may try your methods of persuasion. But no permanent visible damage, and I want her still able to talk." He left the room, hearing the men begin to talk as he left.

He returned to the monitor room, where Daria was busy with the tasks he'd assigned her. "Sir…" she asked, "Shouldn't I go see if Jubilee needs help? It's been a while…" her voice trailed off as she took in Bastion's cold countenance.

She was getting too attached to the girl. Bastion hadn't counted on that. He knew she was loyal, but this business with Jubilee… "Not just yet, Daria," he said quietly. "A lesson needs to be learned here." He strode on past her workstation, ignoring her startled gaze, and as he sat down at his workstation, he heard her murmur, "Yes, sir." He smiled grimly. After what the guards would put her through, Jubilee would welcome Daria's sympathy. Perhaps enough that she would break.

Down in her cell, Jubilee looked up as the door opened. "About time you got here, Daria, I, like, _really_ need…" she trailed off as she realized it wasn't Daria. Two of those red-and-purple armored clowns were walking in toward her. Jubilee could sense they didn't have good intentions. They each seized one of her arms. "Don't even think about it!" she yelled furiously. "Bastion's gonna have your hide if you hurt me! I'm his 'special' prisoner!"

"Yeah, we know," one of them snickered. "Don't worry about it, little girl, he gave you to us. We're not going to rough you up. Not too much, anyway."

Jubilee started yelling, struggling. "Get your hands off, me, you are sooo busted!" she yelled, kicking out with her feet, trying to impede their progress down the hall. "I swear, when Wolvie gets hereto rescue me he's gonna be so pissed you'll be lucky if he just breaks a leg or something!"

The guards dragged her down a narrow hallway that terminated in a heavy steel door, which they opened with a swipe of a passcard. Beyond that door was a room fitted out with a table and chair, both equipped with straps. And beside them, a doctor pulling on gloves, and trays full of shiny, sharp instruments. Jubilee didn't like the looks of this one damn bit.

She tried to lash out at them when they unbuckled the straitjacket, but before she'd gotten her hands free one of the guards brought a massive, armored fist down against the side of her head so hard she saw stars. Dazed, she was unable to fight as they locked metal mitts over her hands and wrists, curling her hands into tight fists in order to do so. Unable to use her powers, she was helpless to resist as they yanked off her jumpsuit and strapped her body spread-eagle to the cold steel table, and when the doctor reached for her, terror took over and she started to scream…

Outside the operating room, one guard sighed at the agonized screaming that had been going on for the last two hours. "Damn doctors. I hope he leaves some for us!"

Xavier raised an eyebrow as the door to his cell opened, and Bastion came in. "Here to taunt me again?" he said calmly, continuing to eat the dinner a guard had brought in moments before.

Bastion watched Xavier eat for a few moments. Then, "She hasn't eaten in three days."

Xavier didn't even look up. "Really. What 'she' would that be? Your assistant?"

"No. Your student."

Finally Xavier did look up, his deep brown eyes unreadable. Bastion took that as assign of interest and pulled the remote control to the viewscreen on one wall of Xavier's cell, and turned it on. "This student. Jubilation Lee."

The screen switched to a real time image of Jubilee, strapped to the table in the operating room. Bastion had been watching, off and on, for the last day or so, being careful that Daria didn't see it. No need to try her loyalty to him.

_Jubilee's muscles spasmed as another current of electricity tore through her body. Strangled cries struggled to escape her suddenly-constricted throat, and she writhed in agony for what must have seemed an eternity to her before the doctor turned off the current. Then she slumped weakly in her bonds, sobbing. "Please!" she cried, her eyes streaming with tears. "Please, for God's sake, stop it, I'm just a kid! Please—" and any further words were drowned out by the crackle of electricity. This time the doctor kept the current on until she passed out…_

Bastion switched off the viewscreen and turned to Xavier. "As you can see, I have your youngest student," he said triumphantly. "Tell me what I want to know, Xavier. Tell me, and I'll spare her this torture."

Xavier blinked once, then reached for the spoon he'd been eating with. "How many more of those simulations are you going to throw at me until you realize how futile an exercise this is? You've tried everything; I haven't given in. I won't give in, Bastion. You will never convince me that you have Jubilee, because I know you couldn't possibly have her. She's safe, and your efforts are all for nothing." He resumed eating.

Bastion stared at Xavier, completely dumbfounded. Of all the reactions he could have gotten from Xavier, this wasn't one he'd expected. "I really do have her, Charles," he insisted, sounding like a child trying to convince a grownup of its veracity. "I ran across her in Massachusetts, and brought her here. She's down in the operating rooms this very minute. You can end her suffering, Xavier, with just a simple word. Tell me what I want to know!"

Xavier put down his spoon and leaned back in his wheelchair. "Yes. You have Jubilee. Like you had Cyclops, and Jean, and Wolverine. I do not believe you, Bastion. Not until I see them with my own eyes. Or touch them with my mind, to ascertain they are who you say they are. You tried to get me with these simulations before, Bastion. You've cried wolf too many times. I'm not listening anymore."

Bastion stared. He could bring Jubilee down here, show Xavier that he really did have the child…but no, if he did that somehow, someway, Xavier would be able to figure a way out. Xavier's cell was equipped with psi-screens that prevented telepathic thought from leaving, but the introduction of Jubilee's receptive mind might give a telepath as powerful as the X-Men's founder a way around that. He had to keep Xavier confined, isolated, and alone.

Jubilee. He would have to get his information out of Jubilee. Xavier was hopeless. His faith in his X-Men was unshakable.

Bastion's mouth curved in an ugly smile. What a shock it would be to Xavier when Bastion had them all, and he found out that the child he had dismissed as being far from here had broken and given Bastion the information he wanted. It would be a shock to Xavier to know that his faith in Emma Frost as a guardian was sadly mistaken.

Bastion was looking forward to that day.

End notes:

The material for the beginning of this chapter comes from X-Men #64. Right after Bastion leaves is where my imagination took over, and ran away with me! Please don't hold the issue's creators responsible for anything after that point.

There are two versions of this chapter. What you just read is the PG13 version. There is an alternate chapter 5 with an expanded middle section, where Jubilee is worked over in the operating room. The altchap is rated R/NC-17; for those of you familiar with my writing, you know what that means. The altchap is on my 'request only' list; if you want to read it, please send me an email and ask for it. And please, make sure you're of legal age where you live to view R rated materials; I don't want to corrupt any minors!

One of the questions my coauthor and I were tossing around…and probably many other comic readers…is this: if Bastion had Xavier and Jubilee, why didn't he try to use Jubilee as leverage against Xavier? It would have made sense; 'Xavier, tell me where to find the X-Men or Jubilee gets it.' Xavier would have given up the location; sacrificing Jubilee to keep his Dream intact wouldn't have crossed his mind. She's too young, too vulnerable. The X-Men themselves, if they'd known, would have given themselves up before allowing Bastion to harm Jubilee. So why didn't it happen?

It took a couple of days before I came up with the answer. Bastion is an android, a 'machine with an ego' as Megalictis put it. He would have tried everything at his disposal to convince Xavier to give up the location. Bastion has so many redundancies in place, so many angles covered, it was impossible he had missed this. The answer occurred to me as I was reading a story to my kids; the boy who cried 'wolf'. Jubilee can't have been the only one he tried the whole simulation thing on; and Xavier knows his X-Men too well to miss the little details that Bastion didn't know about. Bastion has all the subtlety of a rampaging rhinoceros. So Bastion probably showed Xavier simulations of the other X-Men being tortured, like he showed Jubilee the simulation of Wolverine, and Xavier did the same thing; scoffed and refused to believe. And when Bastion really had Jubilee, and was showing him actual events instead of a simulation, he couldn't believe it either. Bastion, like the boy in the story, cried wolf too many times, and ultimately defeated his own purpose. Things might have turned out differently if he had been able to convince Xavier he really had Jubilee. Since he didn't…funny how one small event can change an entire outcome.


	6. Whacked'

Chapter 6: 'Whacked'

They stopped hurting her after her voice was gone; it wasn't as much fun if she couldn't respond to their ministrations. They shoved the jumpsuit at her with a curt order to dress, and Jubilee, shaking from pain and shock, pulled the rough stuff over her sore, abused limbs. She didn't try to fight as they strapped the straitjacket back around her upper body and pinioned her arms; numb from exhaustion, all she could think about was being left alone. They half-dragged, half-carried her back to her cell, and roughly shoved her in before slamming the door behind her.

For a long time she just lay where they'd dropped her, unmoving, unthinking. Hot, agonized tears streaked her face, but she was too exhausted to sob. She dozed, drifting in and out of consciousness, only half-aware of a guard coming in with a plate of food and something to drink. She knew the liquid, even if it were drugged, would ease her parched throat and alleviate her thirst, but the moment she tried to move toward that plate, agony exploded in her abused body and she stayed where she was. Thirst warred with her pain, but she simply hurt too much to even try to reach the food.

It was a long time before the pain in her body eased enough for her to move. She didn't know how long it had been, but the guards had come back in and taken the plate of cold food, then some time later, gave her another plate. Dinner? She didn't know; the food was always the same, so if it was actually breakfast time she'd never know the difference. She drifted into fevered imaginings of what she would be eating if she were at home, and she found herself craving barbecue-flavored potato chips. The thought made her laugh sardonically, humorlessly, at herself, as she fell asleep.

When she woke next, she felt a little better, and the dull, throbbing ache deep in her body had eased enough. The plate of food was gone, but she knew sooner or later someone would bring something in. She needed to drink. Something. Anything. Her stomach cramped in hunger, her throat and mouth dry, her lips cracking with thirst. But the condition of her body kept her from dwelling too much on her situation, helped her ignore just how terrified she now was. She'd never seriously thought Bastion would do—or allow to have done to her---the things that had been done, and she was now almost feverish with terror, imagining the worst things that could happen to her from here on out.

The sound of her cell door opening caught her attention, and she looked up. Through hunger-blurred, gritty eyes she could make out a figure coming in. The measured, slow klik klik of heels on the floor answered her question as to who it was, and her terror was suddenly masked by anger.

Daria set the tray down on the floor and picked up the spoon. Not that Jubilee would be able to use it; but there was one on every tray. She sat back on her heels, then looked at Jubilee. What she saw shocked her.

The child's face was battered, bruised, streaked with dried blood and tears. Blue eyes, once full of life, were now shadowed, filled with terror, dulled by pain. Sweat and dust filmed Jubilee's skin, and her face was so pale her eyes looked even bigger and more startlingly blue against the white skin. Seeing the girl's distress, Daria said as gently as she could, "Jubilee. It's been two days. Eat." The child ignored her, hunching her shoulders, and Daria saw the bruised face become set in anger. At her. She didn't know what she'd done to deserve Jubilee's anger, but she supposed Jubilee was just angry at everyone. And Daria herself was becoming angry, on Jubilee's behalf. For two days she hadn't been allowed near Jubilee, Bastion keeping her busy with other duties. This morning he had simply told her to tend to Jubilee's needs, and told Daria which cell the girl was in. Now the woman could see that during those two days Jubilee had been—there was no other word for it—tortured. Anger and sick horror rushed through her; no child deserved to have this happen to them. No one. Not even mutants.

She made a mental note to speak to Bastion about what the guards were doing behind his back, and turned to Jubilee. "Here. Look." She popped the spoonful of peas into her mouth, just barely keeping from grimacing at the tasteless mess, and ate. "It's safe. Trust me." She had gotten it from Bastion.

Jubilee's voice, when she spoke, was a harsh croak. "Yer kiddin', right?" She raised her head defiantly, although the movement took so much energy, energy she should be conserving. "You an' me, we're practically the same age! Bastion I can understand—he's old enough that he was probably warped out a long time ago, but you?" The voice broke a little. "How can you be so whacked—so mean?"

Daria couldn't think of anything to say. "I…uh…I…" She couldn't tell Jubilee she was perilously close to agreeing with her. So she did the only thing she could think of; she left. Just before the door closed behind her, she said quietly, "Please, Jubilee. Eat."

Jubilee stared at her with rage in her eyes. "Yeah. Right. Thanks for the concern, Daria." The door closed.

Out in the hall, Daria leaned against the wall, arms folded, shoulders hunched. She wasn't mean. She wasn't 'whacked out'—whatever that meant. She_ wasn't._ She wasn't like those guards. And Bastion didn't know the guards had been torturing her. Did he? No, he couldn't have. Yes, he hated mutants…but not this much. Not enough to have a _small child_ tortured. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "Jubilee, I'm so sorry...please, I didn't know…"

Jubilee stared at the door for a long time. _That wasn't fair, Jubes,_ she chided herself. _She didn't hurt you. She had no part in what happened to you._ Pushing off from the wall, she went to the plate on her knees, wrapped her lips around the straw, and drank. Liquid flowed down her throat; orange juice. The sweetness of the fruit sugar hit a system that depended on sugar to maintain her energy levels, and she could almost feel herself getting a little stronger. _At least there ain't nobody around to see this,_ she thought grimly as she lowered her head to the food and started to eat, being careful not to get it everywhere.

And soon after she had eaten and sat back, she felt a heaviness settle on her limbs._ No!_ she thought as the drugs in the food dragged her back down into darkness. _She said it was safe..!_

Jubilee woke…if this was what you could call 'awake.' Her body felt heavy, unresponsive, as if she were a quadriplegic who had lost the use of all four limbs. The straps around her wrists and ankles holding her down to the heavy chair felt very far away, as if her body didn't really belong to her. She felt pleasantly muzzy-headed, as if she were looking out at the world through a thin layer of cotton wool.

A black figure crossed in front of her, and she watched it dreamily._ Bastion…_ But his presence near her didn't inspire her to any kind of terror; not like usual. She wanted to relax, let go of all her worries, and just drift in this painless fog, but some small part of her mind kept insisting, _This isn't right_… and after a moment, she realized why it wasn't right. She'd been drugged; the last memory she had was of collapsing in a drugged stupor beside the empty plate.

_He wants…something…_ she struggled to remember what it was he wanted. _I know something he doesn't…and he can't know it…but what was it?_ Her whacked-out mind tried to fight off the drugged haze, in vain.

Bastion leaned over her, sitting in the chair. "Tell me, Jubilee," he said quietly, smoothly, into her ear. "Tell me what _I_ want to know. _You_ know you want to tell me. So tell me. Where are the X-Men? Where is their base?"

_The X-Men…he wants to know where to find the X-Men._ "They're in…" she started, one part of her mind urging her to tell him, not to resist, just give in…but her voice trailed off as that tiny part of her mind, way in the back, reminded her of her obligations. _No! Don't tell him!_ Oddly enough, the voice sounded like Logan's. _Don't tell him, Jubes, he mustn't know, he can't know. We're dependin' on ya not to tell, Jubilee. Don't tell him. Fight it. You're strong, darlin', stronger'n ya realize. Don't give in…_

"No…" Jubilee didn't even realize it, but her lips were shaping the word right before Bastion' disbelieving eyes. "No…won't tell, Wolvie…promise…won't tell. Fight…stronger…won't let you down…won't let any of you down…Professor…" her voice strengthened a little. "Professor…please…wanna go home…Jean…please, somebody, wanna go home…" tears started to leak from the corners of her drug-glazed eyes. "Wolvie, where are you? I can't do this anymore, Wolvie…they hurt me…Please take me home…"

Bastion pitched his voice low, as comforting and soothingly as he could. "I know you want to go home, Jubilee. If you tell me where 'home' is, I'll take you there. _Where is home_?"

"Wolvie…" the drug dragged up a feeling deep in Jubilee's heart, a feeling she'd never admitted to even herself, much less anyone else. "Wolvie is home. Where he is…that's home." Her lips curved into a soft smile.

Bastion lashed out with a fist, in frustration and anger, catching her across one bruised cheek, snapping her head back on her neck. The child was so drugged she didn't even realize it; she just stared up at the ceiling, smiling at whatever hallucination the drugs had dragged out of her mind for her. He turned to the doctor furiously. "Give her another dose!"

The doctor shook his head. "If we give her anymore she's going to be useless to anyone," he said firmly. "We'll have to wait for her to wake up completely from the sodium pentothal before we dose her again."

"It's a truth drug! It's supposed to get her to tell me the truth!"

The doctor shook his head again. "What it actually does is make the mind of the person you're drugging much more susceptible to suggestion," he said. "It doesn't make someone tell the truth. Nothing can make anyone do that, except telepathy. Even if you tried torturing the truth out of her," he had seen Jubilee's battered, bruised face; and unlike some of his fellow doctors, he didn't approve of torture of anyone, much less _a child_!… "She still might be able to evade the compulsion. Her will is strong, for someone so young." He couldn't keep the note of admiration out of his voice.

Bastion heard it too, and pounced on the doctor, like a hungry cat on a mouse. "Then find me a drug that will make her listen to me," said nastily. "There's more than just the sodium pentothal to make her talk. Try them all."

The doctor looked at Bastion in disbelief. "That many different drugs, all at once, could have a fatal side effect on her, sir," he said quietly. "Those interactions haven't been studied, and since I don't have her medical charts, I don't know if she might be allergic to some of those drugs. Asians are much more susceptible to different drugs, due to their genetically higher metabolism. And with her being a mutant, hers is even more accelerated."

"I don't care!" Bastion thundered. "I want the X-Men's location. Do whatever you have to do to get that for me!" He turned to look at the still figure strapped to the chair. "I will have what I want, child. Do you hear me? _You will tell me what I want to know!_"

End notes:

Most of this chapter is pure fantasy. The only part of this that belongs to Marvel and their creative team on Generation X #28 is the scene where Daria brought the food in and tried to get Jubilee to eat. All the stuff from before is my imagination, and everything afterward, including Daria's internal monologue and the pentothal scene. Don't blame Marvel if any of that seemed 'out of character'; it's all my fault! Mea culpa!

Stay tuned for the next chapter!


	7. Same Difference

Chapter 7: Same Difference

Bastion stared coldly at Daria, but the woman didn't back down. "And what business of it is yours, what the guards do or do not do?" he said coolly. "They're freaks, Daria. Aberrations. They are different from us, and that very difference violates all of Nature's laws."

Daria's chin was set in a firm, stubborn line. "But it's not right, Bastion," she said. "They're torturing her, beating her…abusing her, in ways no one should be abused, mutant or human. She doesn't deserve—"

There was soft thunder in Bastion's voice when he spoke. "Never speak to me of what her kind do and do not deserve," he said. "Humans do not deserve extinction because her kind want to survive. There can only be one dominant species on this planet, Daria, and that will be us humans, by the time I'm done. There will be no more freaks. You and I, and other humans like us, will be safe from her kind." He settled back in his chair, watching the recordings of Jubilee's memories for the umpteenth time. "If it will set your mind at ease, the guards carry out only the orders I give them. They are trying to convince the child that it is in her best interests to talk. No permanent damage will be done, and nothing will be visible."

"Her face is swollen and bruised," Daria said, a note of anger creeping into her voice. "That's not called 'non-visible damage'."

Bastion raised his eyebrow. "I'll be sure and remind my soldiers of that," he said casually. "Return to your duties."

Daria couldn't disobey such a blatant dismissal. She went.

Bastion watched her retreating back, pondering. Daria was getting entirely too familiar, too sympathetic, to Jubilee; he would have to watch her carefully. Or have her reassigned away from Jubilee…

Jubilee lay on the floor of her cell, shaking. Not from cold, though that was part of it. From fear. From guilt. From rage; a soul-deep, cold rage that shocked her because she'd never felt this angry before. Even at her parents' murderers.

The fear was from her continuing captivity, Bastion's constant questioning, his wearing down on her self-control, her spirit, in an effort to get the X-Men. In a way, it was comforting; he hadn't stopped asking her where to find their base, which meant he didn't have them yet. And whenever he got angry or frustrated about her uncooperativeness and beat her, she would go down into darkness with the taste of blood in her mouth and a grim pleasure that he hadn't gotten what he wanted yet. But she was also afraid that he would, eventually, get what he wanted; the drugs he was introducing into her body were playing havoc with her mind. There were huge chunks of time missing from her memory; time she knew she'd lost to those drugs. And the fear that she might have let slip something that could give Bastion the X-Men…that was what she was most afraid of. She had the feeling she might have; after she'd recovered from the drugs completely after one session there'd been an unpleasant smile on his face.

Fear also, about what the drugs were doing to her body. She had a fuzzy recollection of hearing Bastion argue with a doctor about how large a dose she could take, and how soon she could take more. The doctor had said something she couldn't no remember about side effects, and that had worried her once she was aware enough to worry about anything. Her appetite seemed to have diminished, and the jumpsuit she'd been wearing seemed to be getting alarmingly bigger. She was losing weight, weight which she knew she couldn't really afford to lose. While she'd never been anorexically thin, or model-thin, she'd never been fat either, and weight was never something she'd ever worried about. Her first gymnastics instructor had actually complained to her parents that she was a little light. Not a bad thing, in the competing world, but she hadn't been competing yet and her instructor had been of the opinion that being rail-thin meant your body wasn't in peak performance shape.

The upside to that was that the straight jacket had started fitting a bit more loosely. She was afraid to try it while anyone might be watching, but during the long, quiet, lonely hours in her cell when the darkness was absolute, she had tentatively tried to wiggle out of it. She was now sure that she could use her paffs to free herself; but she didn't want to risk it until she was sure she could succeed.

Guilt came from the fact that she might have told him what he wanted to know. Without a clear memory of her time in the interrogation rooms, she couldn't be sure of what she had or hadn't said. The drugs mixed with physical agony had worn at her defenses, and she might well have let something important slip.

It wasn't just physical pain. It was also humiliation and abuse. In an effort to avoid the drugs, she'd stopped eating, and only drank a little when her thirst grew so unbearable she had to drink. So in order to get her to eat, the guards had come to her cell, armed with a thick tube. They shoved it down her throat and forcibly fed her through that tube, shoving food down it until she was full. Several times they'd fed her too much, and she ended up vomiting all over herself when the tube was pulled out and her gag reflex was triggered. They had brought a pressurized hose into her cell, then, and cleaned her and the cell with icy water. She had scrabbled desperately on her knees to avoid the pounding, bruising spray, without much luck. There was nowhere she could go.

The last time she had been dragged back to her cell from the torture room, she'd been spaced out on their drugs and the pain. She realized then that they waited until they saw her moving around again before they came to fetch her for another round. So she played dead; lying on the floor unmoving, breathing shallowly, ignoring the food they shoved in to her once a day, trying to convince them that she was still strung out and wasn't worth bothering. Trying to buy herself more time away from the pain and the drugs, trying to give her body and mind more time to recover.

The door to her cell finally hissed open, but before she could crack open one gritty, tear-crusted eye to see who it was, she heard the klik of heels. _Daria_! She shut her eyes quickly, willing her body to appear limp as she gathered herself for a desperate bid for freedom, because Daria hadn't closed and locked the door behind her.

"Jubilee…" the soft concern in the other woman's voice almost made her start to cry; she hadn't heard a sympathetic voice in ages. Just curses and taunts. She steeled herself, willing herself to appear asleep. Logan had taught her that. She'd feigned sleep once around him, and he'd known. He'd taught her, then, how to lie perfectly still; how to become instantly alert without the slightest movement betraying that fact; how to control her breathing, how to tense her muscles for fast action without letting whoever was looking at her know she was doing it. She hoped she'd get out of here; she owed him some thanks for teaching her those lessons now… "Jubilee? It's been nearly a week since Bastion took you prisoner." Her eyes fell on the tray of food, untouched, by the child's feet. "If you keep this up much longer, you'll only harm yourself."

Jubilee had to exert every ounce of her self-control to keep from stiffening in shock. A week! It had only been a week! It had felt so much longer than that…she realized that they must have been bringing her food at irregular intervals, to make her think that time was passing faster than it actually had. Yet another means Bastion had been employing to keep her under control. As time went on…as the amount of time _she perceived_ went on, her hopes for rescue would grow dimmer and dimmer until she gave up in hopelessness. Gave up and told Bastion what he wanted to know. A week. Only a week. And she already felt as if she'd been in here for an eternity. _Damn, I'm gonna develop claustrophobia like Ro's if I stay here any longer._

Daria sighed and went to one knee beside the still figure, reaching for the tray…and paused. "Jubilee…I know that you can't really hear this, and if you could it probably wouldn't mean much anyway, but…I'm sorry. I'm sorry for everything you've had to go through…and I'm sorry for what Bastion is going to do to your friends with the information he gathered from your mind." Jubilee hadn't given Bastion the location of the X-Men's operating base; but her memories of her friends revealed their interpersonal relationships with each other, their feelings, their vulnerabilities, their weaknesses. The stunningly beautiful African woman named 'Storm'…Bastion had a tiny cell, no bigger than a closet, being prepared for her, because Jubilee had remembered Storm was claustrophobic. Maybe if she could convince Jubilee to cooperate, she herself could convince Bastion that Jubilee had broken and he would give her a little more freedom. Maybe Jubilee could then somehow make her friends' lives here a little better, a little easier…"If you're a little more cooperative, maybe I can—"

"'Maybe you can' what, WITCH!" Jubilee screamed, jumping up from her position on the floor. Daria screamed and stumbled back, and Jubilee took the opportunity to blast her way out of the loosely-buckled straitjacket and attack the other woman. "You'll get me a job like yours, helping that neo-Hitler hunt down innocent people?" Jubilee gathered herself, breathing hard, as she looked down at Daria, cringing terrified against the wall. "Took me a while of pretendin' I was lamed out on your stupid drugs, but now I know…" then she looked at Daria, really looked, and her tone softened. "Hey. Get a grip. I only used enough of my pyrotechnic power to stun you. I didn't do that much damage…did I?"

Daria felt the stirrings deep within her body, and felt what seemed like a billion microscopic things migrate from inside her to the outside. And she abruptly realized that the injections she had been taking, the injections Bastion had insisted everyone take, had been doing something to her body…she was helpless to stop the tiny silvery micro-insectoid form emerging through her skin and flying out toward Jubilee. She'd never had this happen before; she didn't even know what they were, much less how to stop it from hurting the girl she'd already wronged so horribly.

Jubilee flung her hands up in front of her, trying to ward off the tiny specks flying en masse toward her. Surprised, she yelped, "What the—! Daria, wh—what are you? What the hell are you?" and she screamed as the micro-insectoid nanotech defensive system created and implanted in Daria's body by Bastion descended on her. She didn't know what they would do, but she did know she didn't want any of those anywhere near her!

Daria gasped as her entire body seemed to melt into that little silvery cloud of airborne nanites. "Oh…God…what…what's happening to me!"

Jubilee had surrounded herself with a wall of paffs, which were constantly exploding in an effort to keep the nanites away from her. "You have powers too?" she called through the makeshift 'forcefield' she'd created.

Daria was panicked, and that didn't help clear her mind enough to form coherent thought. "I don't…No…what powers?…I've never…"

Jubilee sighed. "Perhaps you didn't know…but you have them." She cautiously lowered her arms a little, to be able to see Daria over them. "When I blasted you…it must have caused you to let go of your powers on reflex." Jubilee'd never seen anyone create metal nanites from their bodies before, so she was guessing the nanites had been put there. _But Daria had them under control before I paffed her,_ _so regardless of what the things are made of, Daria does have some sort of psionic control over 'em. And since she does, that must mean she's a mutant. _

Daria had no such ability to calmly assess the situation, as Jubilee was doing. "Oh, God, Jubilee! I'm_ falling apart!_ I'm a machine _and I'm falling apart_!"

Jubilee took control of the situation. "No, Daria! Listen to me." She didn't dare approach the woman again, but Daria seemed to be listening to her just fine. "I know lots of people with powers." Hell, almost everyone she knew had something they could do…"I've even seen them let go of their powers like this, in fear, in sickness." Jean's face, on fire with the Phoenix's flame, crossed her mind, but she stamped it down firmly and returned her attention to the problem at hand. "But they end up drawing them back in. I've seen that, too. Every time. It's what Gen X is all about. It just takes concentration. Relax, Daria."

"Relax! How can I—" Daria still sounded panicked. Jubilee felt a sudden surge of pity for her. She'd discovered her own powers at an early age; so her control over them was all she had to develop. How much worse could it be for Daria, who didn't even know she had them till now?

"Relax," she said, reaching out to touch Daria, trying to soothe the other woman. "Relax and draw your powers into you." It took a moment, but Jubilee finally saw those buzzing little metal things shrink back into Daria's body bit by bit, until they were completely gone. Back inside her, where they'd come from. "That's it. All better."

"No." Daria was starting to shake, and Jubilee instinctively reached out to hug her, knowing from personal experience how unsettling that first use of power could be. "No, I'm not better. How can I be? They call you a freak. I hear them…everyone here calls you that. But if that's what you are…then what am I?"

"We aren't freaks, Daria." She patted the other woman's back. "None of us are. Just different. All humans are different from each other; the difference between humans and mutants is the same. Like you and me. Same difference. There's no law in nature that says we can't be different. People make those laws. And they're wrong."

She would have said more, but there was suddenly a piercing pain in her back, and she howled and fell forward. Daria stared at the dart buried between Jubilee's shoulderblades, and met the girl's gaze for one horrified second before Jubilee went limp. She looked past the girl, to the door she'd left open, and was stunned to see two of the First Strike guards standing there, one lowering a tranquilizer gun. She stared numbly at the child as the guards roughly forced her limbs into another straitjacket, then stooped almost mechanically to pick up the tray. Still in shock, she headed almost robotically toward the door. As she headed down the corridors to drop off the untouched tray, one thought filled her mind. S_he could have escaped…but she stayed to help me and got caught again. And they will hurt her for 'attacking' me when she wakes up…again. How can Bastion do this? He's the same as I am…I saw that on the monitors. He is wrong…I'm sure of it…but there isn't really anything I can do…_

End Notes:

We (my coauthor and I) can't thank you all enough for all of your kind thoughts and praise for this little undertaking. It's all appreciated, as it helps us become better writers.

The scene between Daria and Jubilee comes from Gen X #28 and 29, everything else comes from our imaginations. "Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's" so we'll have to render credits for the original story idea to the writers at Marvel. The rest of it goes to me, Jaenelle, and also Megalictis, my 'research assistant/coauthor', without whose help this story wouldn't be as good--or as complete--as it is!

There will be an alternate chapter 8 as well; I'm out of time right now but there will be an altchap tomorrow, so by the time you request it, it should be done. If you want it, ask…but remember the rating goes up on the altchaps!


	8. Guilt

Chapter 8: Guilt

"Put the mindsifter on, then bring her to the control room."

Bastion's orders were quite clear, but made little sense to the two guards that stalked down the corridor. He had the X-Men; the transport carrying them (or at least a few of them) was en route to the Hulkbuster base, so why did he still want Jubilee's thoughts monitored? "Look, this don't make no sense," one guard finally said to the second one. "He's got the mutie freaks, he's got the location of their base, what's he need any more of her memories for?"

The other man thought for a moment, then shrugged and gave up. "Ours not to question why, ours but to do or die," he quoted whimsically. "Who cares. Just do what he says."

They pressed the keys on the electronic keypad that opened the door to cell 233, and strode inside. The young girl looked up when they walked in, her expression one of sudden fear.

Jubilee stared up at the two dark figures in the doorway, her heart suddenly thumping hard in her chest. She'd been left alone for a long time; after her last session of drugs and abuse, Bastion had smiled grimly when he walked away. And after that, there had been nothing. A guard shoved food and drink in to her, but they hadn't been drugged; and even the guards' abuse tapered off once the initial shock and pain had passed and her body became used to the intrusion. When she no longer responded to their battering with screams of pain and pleas for mercy, it hadn't been as much 'fun' for them. They had left her alone after that, leaving her in the darkness of her cell. Her body had slowly recovered; she clung to that knowledge, gaining a small scrap of hope in the midst of her almost overwhelming terror. Bastion had stopped asking her about the X-Men; did that mean he had them? And was it something she'd said? She remembered that cold, unpleasant smile he'd had after the last time…

But these guards weren't here to drag her off for more abuse. They pulled her to her feet, and she stood quietly as they strapped the mindsifter to her head and dropped the bulky backpack on her shoulders. Then they roughly shoved her out of the cell and down more long featureless hallways until they reached a set of heavy doors. The door opened at their approach, and Jubilee was escorted into a huge room.

An enormous viewscreen dominated one wall. Under it, banks of computers hummed quietly as they went about carrying out their normal functions. Daria sat at one of those workstations, looking up briefly when she saw Jubilee come in. She didn't smile or say anything; Jubilee sighed. So much for their brief bonding moment.

Bastion hit a switch on the remote he held, and Jubilee blinked as the entire room in front of her filled with images.. On it was a huge transport plane, probably like the one Bastion had brought her here in, and over it, escorting it like fighter pilots over Air Force One, were a bunch of Sentinels. A human voice, distorted by the mechanism, said over the loudspeakers, "The transport has arrived from Colorado with the neutralized mutant designates. Secure the perimeter and commence offloading!"

Jubilee frowned as the unloading hatch on the plane opened, and four First Strike guards disembarked, balancing an anti-grav sled between them. Jubilee thought she saw a flash of Scott's visor, and…a yellow utility belt? Naw. Couldn't be. It just couldn't. Forcing her voice to keep steady, she scoffed lightly, "You're really pushin' the envelope with this one, Bastion!"

Bastion came to stand beside her, and Jubilee saw the look of complete satisfaction on his face. He looked like a cat stuffed full of cream. "Oh, it's true, Miss Lee. The outlaw group of mutants you call the X-Men has been brought to justice…their nest in Salem Center has been breached…" the cold tone sent shivers down Jubilee's spine. No. She couldn't have. How did…? "…and very soon, their race will be extinct. No longer will mankind live in fear of his genetically enhanced cousins." As the antigravity sleds pulled up, Jubilee saw Ororo, immobilized in some sort of hard casing; Scott, with some sort of mask locked over his head and face; and Sam, Paige's older brother, with some kind of heavy restraining mittens on his hands somewhat like the ones that had been used on her when she was in the guards' playroom.

Jubilee forced a bravado in her voice she wasn't feeling at the moment. "You went over the top with that 'Wolvie begging for mercy' bit the last time, now you expect me to believe that you creeps took out Storm, Cyclops, and Cannonball and trashed the Xavier Institute? As if!"

Bastion's voice was oily with satisfaction, and Jubilee wanted to belt him. Hit him, or kick him, anything to get that self-satisfied smirk off his face and out of his voice. "The time for charades is over, child. Operation: Zero Tolerance—the design by which I will destroy mutantkind—is on the verge of success…and it is owed in part to information I took from your mind, "Jubilee".

Jubilee's heart sank into her shoes, and guilt settled over her like a heavy wool blanket. She must have…had she? How else had Bastion found out where the X-Men lived…maybe this was all wrong…maybe she hadn't…but how else had…oh, no…

Sam rose groggily, pushing himself up on his elbows. "Uhh…take these dampers off me, ya low-down gene Nazis! Lemme fight y'all one-on one!"

One of the guards raised his gun and whacked Sam on the head, the butt of the rifle connecting with Sam's skull with a solid whump. "Shut your trap, mutant!" Jubilee recognized that voice; it was 'Eyes'! She'd heard his voice too many times during her imprisonment to mistake it. Angry, she hurtled forward. "You leave Sam alone, you big bully!" She wasn't sure what she was going to do, but she had to do something! Maybe butt him in the stomach with this bulky thing on her head. "You leave him be, or—" she broke off abruptly as her head and shoulders vanished through the armored guard, just like Kitty when she phased through things… "—they're all just holograms!" She heaved a huge mental sigh of relief. "Nothin' but smoke an' mirrors! You can't fool me, Bastion! You can't—" and again she broke off as she saw the occupants of the next sled.

Wolvie and Jean.

She tried desperately to believe this was an illusion, just an illusion and nothing more, but when she looked at the woman who had been a combination big-sister/friend/surrogate mother to her, and the man who was her savior, her life, her entire world…she saw how tightly Logan had gripped Jean's hand in his. The movement of his fingers was curtailed by the mitts covering his hands and restricting his claws, but he was grabbing Jean's hand. She knew he would reach for Jean one last time, with his last breath, with his last bit of strength…and she also knew, with a bone-deep certainty, that Bastion wouldn't know about this, wouldn't know how deep Logan's love for Jean ran…and she knew this wasn't just a hologram. This was far too real. She said in a small voice, "This…is the real thing, isn't it?" Despair settled over her. It was over. She'd failed. And because of her, everyone she knew and loved would die.

"Truth is self-evident, is it not?" Bastion smiled grimly After all this time, all his effort, he had them. He had the X-Men. And this child would spend the rest of her life grieving, feeling guilty, for her betrayal of her friends. He wasn't about to tell her how he had really gotten the X-Men's location. There had been a memory of Jean and Jubilee shopping at a mall, and the name of the mall had been on signs inside the building. It had only taken a quick computer search for residences close by the mall before he turned up one owned by Xavier. And when he saw the 'school' s website, he had known that this was the X-Men's base. Jubilee hadn't told him; he'd had to get the actual location…but she had pointed him in the right direction. It was all the same, really. "What you saw was a real-time holographic projection from the surface. Had you forgotten that you are ensconced far below the desert floor? It is all true, Ms. Lee. Approximately an hour ago, the X-Men known as Cyclops, Phoenix, Wolverine, Storm, and Cannonball were taken into custody by my forces. Yes, even the Xavier Institute has given up its secrets. Soon we will break the encryption protocols for the 'Xavier Protocols' and the 'Mutant Underground' files, which hold the key to defeating every X-Man."

_No. Oh, no. No. I failed. Oh, God, I failed_…and the knowledge came crashing down on Jubilee like a tidal wave, swamping her in grief and guilt. "No…no, you can't!" His hand came up too close to her face, and fear and guilt made her wild. She bit him. Hard.

"I can—and I WILL!" Bastion struck out at her. Her teeth hadn't clamped down on his skin, but just the fact that she had the temerity to do it…he belted her again. And, seeing that that light hadn't gone out, he hit her again. "Even now, your fellow X-Men are descending to their perpetual incarceration. You will never understand this, girl---but I am sorry. It brings me no pleasure, no elation of victory knowing that your kind will perish by my hand. I must protect the human race…and mutants are its greatest threat." He looked down at her, fallen to her knees before him, her head swimming with stars from the force of the blow, and sighed. "I will be back, Daria," he said, grabbing the back of Jubilee's jumpsuit and helmet and dragging her up on the nearby illusion-producing dais that had been her 'cell' for almost three days. "I want to supervise this offloading personally." He left the room without a backward look.

The six guards sensed their boss was happy with this cargo, and talked quietly amongst themselves as the platform lift descended to the bowels of the Hulkbuster base. "Hey, this hairy one is leaking something fierce," one finally looked over and saw the blood leaking from Logan's cuts.

'Eyes' snickered. "Oh, yeah? Turn him over so the holes are facing up."

The first guard sighed. "Okay. Gotta…pry his hand loose…from the redhead, though…" Deed followed word, and the guard turned Logan over on his back. "Whoa! What are we taking this freak down to security detention for? Nobody can take damage like that and still be alive!"

Their conversation was interrupted by the sound of the lift grating to a halt. "Heads up!" he called to the second set of guards who met them at the doorway to 'Security Level 01'. "Prisoners coming through for the ultra-containment block!"

The guard who took Scott's antigrav sled said caustically, "The sooner they're locked up, the better!"

The regular personnel lift near them opened up and disgorged Bastion, his grim face looking just a little less grim than usual. "Stop," he said. "I want to look at them." The guards stopped, and Vastion strode up beside the sleds, looking down at the unconscious occupants. "Ah, homo superior—born with superhuman power, yet so like mankind in your vulnerability. Why do I hate you, I wonder? Many of you appear no different than any other human. If I cut you, you bleed. If I strike you, you bruise…and in times of strife, you take solace from those closest to you. So why do I feel—in the deepest core of my being—that I must eradicate you?" He stood for a time, musing, then shook his head. "Bah. I waste precious time in contemplation. What I do, I do for the good of humanity." He gestured to the guards. "You may proceed." He turned down another corridor as the two antigrav sleds moved off under the guards' supervision.

Xavier looked up as the door to his cell opened, and Bastion came in. With a flick of a switch from the remote he held, he showed Xavier what Jubilee had seen; the X-Men being offloaded. 'Did you ever think it would end like this, Xavier? When you formed the X-Men, years ago…did you think your foolish dream of peace between the species would die so easily?"

Xavier's heart sank as he saw Scott, Ororo, Jean, Logan, and Sam on those antigrav sleds, but refused to allow himself to sink into despair. "Men die, Bastion. Dreams live on."

Bastion persisted. "Your 'best and brightest' have been brought low, Xavier. The students you spent so long preparing for this very fight have failed utterly. They will be kept here for the rest of their unnatural lives." The hologram was showing Ororo and Jean and Scott being offloaded into containment cells.

Xavier refused to take the bait. "As long as they still breathe, there is hope."

Bastion waved a hand dismissively. "Spare me the platitudes, Xavier. I've heard enough of them in the months since you came into my custody." He clicked to another section of the containment facilities. "This animal, the one you call Wolverine, is a perfect symbol of what humanity fears in mutants. A fear that, deep in your heart of hearts, you share. Ever since the day you took him in, you've known the moment might come when despite your efforts, he would no longer be able to control his bestial nature." Bastion sniffed. "No matter. Apparently he did not survive the crash of their aircraft." Two of his guards were loading Wolverine's still form into the disposal incinerator.

Xavier stared. No…Logan had survived worse, though Bastion didn't know that. And Bastion's guards were putting him in the incinerator. Logan wouldn't survive that…"Logan!" he cried, about to tell Bastion that Logan was still alive, had to be…but the communications unit at Bastion's belt beeped, and Bastion paused to dig it out. "What is it?"

"Sir, please return to the control room," came the voice Xavier recognized as Bastion's female assistant. "There's something here you should see."

"On my way." And Bastion stalked out of the room, leaving Xavier to ponder his students' predicament alone.

End Notes:

Credits for this go to the creative team on Wolverine 115, Hama/Yu/Tadeo, my gratitude for giving me such a detailed issue to work from!

There really was a lot going on in this issue, which is why I'll be stretching 115 through chapters 8 and 9. My apologies to the artists and writers mentioned above; the sudden scene shifts are perfectly fine in a comic book, but they might be confusing to the reader, so I took small blocks of the book and compressed them into larger chunks. Bastion's 'talk' with Xavier happened on pages 7 and 9 of #115, with page 8 put in the middle of the two pages. In order to make this a little more coherent for prose, I took page 8 out and put that in the beginning of chapter 9, then compressed page 7 and 9 into the last scene of chapter 8. Hope I didn't confuse too many of you.

I'm going to hold onto chapter 8 an extra day, because chapters 8 and 9 need to be written together, since both depend heavily on each other's content for ease of reading. Both chapters will appear together.

On to the next chapter!


	9. Breakout

Chapter 9: Breakout

While Bastion had made his way to Xavier's cell, the sleds arrived with their occupants in the ultra-containment block the guards jokingly referred to as 'The Hole'. "Sort them out and get them locked down in the specialized cells!" he ordered. "The redhead goes into number three with the psi-shields. The tall one goes in the bunker with ceramic armor and blast-dampers. This one—" he broke off as he saw Logan. "Huh? No use locking this one up, he's a stiff!"

One of the other guards spoke up. "This mutie caught some heavy damage. He saved the redhead by absorbing the impact."

The first guard waved a hand. "Whatever. Take him down to incineration. And strip off the containment gear before you throw him in the furnace! The stuff doesn't grow on trees!" As two of his comrades hauled Logan's body up on the antigrav sled for transport, the one in charges said, "Stand by! I'm unlocking all cells with the master switch!"

The two guards took the sled with its dead occupant down the hall a couple of doors and into another chamber; it was small, and dominated by a huge round incinerator door in one wall. They stripped off the containment gear, hauling Logan onto the sliding platform and pushing him into the incinerator. The door closed with a heavy metallic clang, and they turned their attention to the keypad. "Gas jets are on," one said quietly, checking the gauges.

"Let it build up in there before you hit the ignition."

The quiet but still audible _hisss_ of gas jets broke into Logan's subconscious. He took a deep sniff, identified it as… "...Gas!"

He sat up on the heavy metal slab, groaning as not-yet-fully-healed muscles protested._ Last thing I remember is our plane goin' down. Body functions must've shut down while the ol' mutant healin' factor was kickin' in… _and outside the metal chamber, he heard a voice say, "That should do it. Fire it up!" He was already reaching for the door when he heard the soft _ptink_ of a button being pushed.

His bone claws were already out as he pushed the door open and attacked the two men standing in front of it, feeling the heat of the incinerator's fire lick across his back as he did so. To the two soldiers he must have looked like a demon from some depthless hell, rising from the inferno to pay them back for what they'd done to him and his kind…but neither one was given much time to dwell on what their Maker might have in store for them before Logan's claws sent them into darkness. He didn't waste any time; he quickly, efficiently, stripped one of them of his distinctive body armor and mask, then shouldered the gun and went hunting for his teammates.

He found them purely by accident, when he passed through a big chamber with a number of smaller doors leading from it and saw three of the guards kicking and punching a figure lying on the floor. "Beg, gene-trash! A little earnest pleading will stop the pain!"

Sam (a quick sniff assured Logan of the battered man's identity) gasped out through gritted teeth, "Never!"

Logan advanced into the room, gun at the ready, mask completely hiding his face. "What's goin' on down here?"

One of the guards, a man with hard, cold eyes, growled out, "We got us a right surly mutant prisoner! Disrespectful to his betters, he is!" He grabbed a fistful of Sam's shirtfront and hauled him upright.

Logan snorted behind his mask. "Better at what? Floatin' on top of a stagnant pond? 'Scuse me while I knock out the cameras." Before the other guards had a chance to react, a quick burst of energy from the gun knocked out the surveillance cameras he'd noticed in passing on his way in. "Now." He took off the helmet and mask and showed them exactly who it was who had just turned the tables on him…and enjoyed their looks of shock as 'the stiff' spoke to them. "All you sterlin' examples o' humanity, drop yer weapons, open them cell doors, and you pick up that surly young mutant and brush him off real nice!"

Jubilee fell to her knees on the floor as Bastion left. It was over. They'd lost. The X-Men were captured. Wolvie was gone. And it was all because of her. She'd failed. She'd given Bastion the location of the Institute. She'd given him the means to defeat her friends. And at that moment, she wished with all her heart that she was back with the guards. They'd be hurting her…but she'd deserve it. She'd betrayed her friends, because she was weak. "I'm _sorry_," she whispered, tears filling her blue eyes as her shoulders drooped in despair. "I'm so sorry…oh, God, _please_…I didn't mean to, I really really really didn't mean to…Wolvie…Please, Wolvie, forgive me…I didn't mean to…he _hurt_ me…he _made_ me tell him…I'm sorry!" She broke down into harsh, body-wracking sobs, not caring who might be watching. It was over. It was_ all _over. Xavier's dream was dead…because of _her_. She'd carry the guilt around for the rest of her life… "I'm so sorry," she whispered again, uselessly, knowing that nothing she said or did would ever _ever _make it all alright again.

As if from a long distance away, she heard Bastion's voice as he walked into the room. "You had better have a good reason for calling me back here, Daria! I was beginning to pry a wedge into Xavier's vaunted mental armor—" Jubilee's mind refused to process the words; instead, the words _I'm sorry, Wolvie, forgive me_ were repeating endlessly in her mind as her memories of him played out in her mind behind her squeezed-shut eyelids.

Daria spoke softly. Her heart had nearly broken when she saw Jubilee's despair; the images the mindsifter were picking up now were….disquieting. Which was why she had called Bastion. "Jubilee went into a depressed state after you left." Depressed? Saying Jubilee was 'depressed' was like saying the ocean was deep. It was a tremendous understatement. She was glad that Jubilee had the straitjacket on and had no way to kill herself; otherwise she was afraid the girl would actually attempt suicide. "These images started showing up on the memory scanner!" She activated the viewscreen, and showed Bastion what she had seen; Wolverine fighting the assassins belonging to the Hand; Wolverine ripping apart some large piece of machinery; Wolverine tearing some sentinels apart; Wolverine fighting Lady Deathstrike…the images went on. "There's such raw, unrestrained violence…! this Wolverine is like some elemental force of destruction—"

Bastion dismissed it all. "The child is merely acting out. These are less memories than projections of her own frustration. They are of little concern to us. Besides," he said, starting to turn away from the viewscreen, "He is no more than a mound of warm ashes by now—"

A corner of the screen crackled to life. "Sorry to interrupt this memory scan, Sir, but we have a problem. We've lost all visual surveillance on the ultra-containment block…and now the main board shows all the cell doors have been opened and relocked!"

Bastion snapped upright, as if someone had just jammed a bar of steel up his spine. "What? Patch me video feeds from inside the cells!"

The security officer placed a hand to the comm unit in his ear, frowning as he tried to make sense of the garbled communications coming over it. "The main cell cameras are all down, but we still have a feed from the hidden cameras…here we are…" he flipped a switch, and Jubilee's memories were suddenly replaced by images of the cells. Block after block of them, filled with not their regular occupants, but…

"…What the--? That's the guard detail! They've been compromised!"

Bastion yelled at the top of his lungs, as if somehow every soldier on the base could hear him if he just shouted loud enough. "FULL SECURITY ALERT! The X-Men are free inside the base!"

And those words penetrated the haze clouding Jubilee's guilt-fogged mind. She raised her head slowly, listening to the sirens, the alarms, and Bastion's shouting, and a small smile crept across her face.

The sirens blared, and a guard looked up reflexively as they started going off. And then looked down quickly at the shadows in the hall before him. "Halt! Produce identification—"

The figure in the lead of the small knot of people stepped forward out of the shadows, and the man bit his lip as he saw who it was. "'Silence, fool. It is I, Bastion. Your master."

"Atten-hut!" The squad leader ordered the rest of them to attention, which they did.

"At ease, trooper," said Bastion sternly. "We have reason to believe that the mutant escapees have procured body armor and weapons. They may be disguised as security troopers. You have an open clearance to fire on any trooper—weapons set to 'stun'—who cannot supply the proper password, which is 'ninth circle'."

The man in charge fired off a snappy military salute. "Yes sir. Ninth Circle. Understood sir!" and he took his team down the opposite direction from which Bastion had come. Bastion himself got into a nearby lift, accompanied by Daria and three Prime Sentinels, and commanded, "To the surface!"

"Yes sir," said Daria, and hit a button, sending the elevator up the shaft as the door closed. Then, and only then, did their likenesses change, to reveal Jean, Ororo, Sam, Scott, and Logan. Ororo was shaking, and her dusky skin was several shades paler than usual. "I cannot bear it, Logan! My claustrophobia---the very thought of being this deep below the surface—" She couldn't go on, but grabbed for Logan's arm for support.

"Hang in there, Ororo," Logan said grimly. "We'll have ya up in daylight in no time!"

Jean and Scott, meanwhile, were having their own conversation. "Scott…" Jean breathed. "It was a strain before, but now, the effect of keeping the illusion up within their psyches…!"

Scott took his wife's hand in his own. The guards hadn't bothered to remove the ruby quartz glasses he wore instead of his visor on occasion, for which he was immensely grateful. "Take it easy, Jean. It'll be up to me and Cannonball to blast through the final barriers at the surface!"

Jean sighed. "By now they must be alerted to our escape. We're bound to run into the Sentinels—the newer, deadlier version—that took us out before!"

Sam spoke up, his face still a patchwork of bruises from the beating he'd gotten. "Ah expect to give as good as I get!" Then, sensing Jean needed something to lift her spirits, he said gently, "Phoenix, Ma'am, that was some quick thinkin' givin' every group we passed a different password!"

Scott said determinedly, "She did good, Sam. Ororo? Are you going to be all right?"

Ororo took a deep, calming breath. "I am fine, Cyclops."

Logan grabbed Ororo's hand, squeezing it in a gesture of support. "Storm ain't lettin' the team down in the bottom o' the ninth, Cyke."

Up in the control room, Bastion was frantically flipping through the camera frequencies, trying to find one that worked. Finally he found one…

"…Halt! Identify yourselves!" he saw a squad of five troopers face another squad of five.

"Who wants to know?' the leader of the second squad called out.

"Just give the password!" retorted the leader of the first squad.

"Seventh Circle!" said the second squad leader.

"Wrong!" howled the first squad leader. "Open fire!" orange energy bursts started to splatter off the walls.

"They don't acknowledge the proper password! Mow 'em down!" yelled the second squad leader. The energy blasts started flying both ways.

Bastion was almost beside himself with rage. "CEASE FIRE! Those are our own men!"

The first squad leader protested, "But sir, you personally gave us orders to shoot anybody who didn't know the password!"

Bastion clenched his fist in rage. "You IDIOT! Phoenix, the telepath, entered your minds and made you see my form!"

With all the base's power going to the security systems, neither Bastion nor Daria noticed that the illusion of walls had come down around the dais and Jubilee was now watching the whole thing with a light in her eyes and joy in her heart. "Tell 'em to shoot anybody who looks like you, Bastion! Ha!" She wanted to laugh, but she was too busy trying to figure out how to escape and help her friends.

Bastion glowered at her, then turned back to the viewscreen and called up the base's schematics. "Reconfigure the monitors to command post mode…activate interactive control surfaces…" the screen went to touch-sensitive status, and he continued touching areas of the screen, doing God-knew-what. Jubilee watched every button he touched intently; somewhere in there, there had to be a way to defeat him… "...I'm sealing the facility." He touched a last button, and Jubilee could almost imagine she felt the floor vibrate under her feet as the heavy shielded blast doors _whirred_ closed, then locked with a heavy _kashunk._

"Surface blast door sealed!" came an affirmative shout from a soldier standing in front of the door. Seconds later, the security coordinator's voice came up over the intercom. "We have contact with the mutants, sir! They're only one level from the surface!" Then, almost as an afterthought, "How did they get that far?"

Bastion glared grimly at the viewscreen. "Who cares? Activate all Sentinel Prime units, and proceed to the blast doors. Your orders are to contain the mutant designates!" On screen, Logan plowed through a mob of soldiers that no other person, human or mutant, would have been able to survive. Scott blasted Sentinels into their component little silvery chips, and Jean telekinetically lifted the various guards and soldiers into Scott's line of fire. Sam, also fighting an aerial battle, smashing his way through a group of Sentinels. Jubilee's spirits lifted. Maybe they had a chance…

The five X-Men got to the corner just in front of the door, and peeked out cautiously for an assessment of the danger before planning their strategy. "Looks like they slammed the exit door on us, folks!" Logan growled.

Sam took in the Sentinels hovering before the heavy door, and sighed. "And they sicced the Sentinels on us, to boot! Ain't no turnin' back, neither!"

"Ain't never no turnin' back, Sam," Logan said, easing out from under Ororo's arm.

"Wolverine's right." Scott assessed the situation quickly. "We take the offense, even if it means--"

Ororo drew herself up to her full height. "Stand aside, Cyclops! It is time for Storm to put her fear behind her and unleash the power that is her namesake!" Her blue eyes whitened out in a face that had regained its color once she realized that this door was all that was keeping her from freedom and her beloved sky. As a child, she'd been buried alive in a pile of rubble, and that had left her with hopeless claustrophobia. While she was confined underground, she had fought the urge to lash out with her power, mindful of the damage, the hurt, it could cause not only to her enemies, but her friends. Now she let loose with a tremendous lightning blast that shorted out every Prime Sentinel in their vicinity, leaving the path to the door clear for Scott. The brief but intense burst of power overtaxed her already strained body, and Logan caught her as her legs sagged. "Ya did it, 'Ro! You just lean on the ol' canucklehead while Cyke does his thing on the blast door lock!"

Scott braced himself and reached for his glasses. "Avert your eyes, people, I'm giving it full power!" It was something he rarely did, lest they harm anyone close to him. But he was desperate now; and on his shoulders rested not only the lives of his wife and friends, but also untold thousands of innocents if Bastion should get his hands on them. Right now, he was firmly convinced—and rightly so—that the X-Men were the only ones who could possibly stop Bastion's mad plans. So he let go with everything he had, in a sustained burst that he was certain would break the lock and open the doors. But when the haze of ionized air cleared…

"Whu--!" Sam stared in disbelief, doing a double-take. "Didn't even dent it!"

"It's shielded!" Scott cried in disbelief and despair. "I failed--!"

Logan let go of Ororo as he turned to deal with the Prime Sentinels coming up behind them. "The fat lady ain't sung yet, Summers." And with that the battle was joined. Again.

In the control room, Daria watched the X-Men onscreen. "It's so—so—" She searched for words.

"Futile?" Bastion said, watching the screen in satisfaction. The X-Men weren't getting out. He would continue to throw every Prime Sentinel he had at them until they tired, then he would have them killed. They were mutants, flesh and blood; they weren't tireless like his Sentinels. Sooner or later he would have them.

"Tragic," Daria finally said.

Bastion watched the screen. "More so than you can imagine, girl. More so that you can imagine. But this is our purpose. This is why we exist. Besides, it will be over in a matter of seconds—"

That was when Jubilee made her move. Eyes fixed on the console, at that one button that would give her friends their freedom, she dodged and ducked, putting all her strength into a fast drive with her legs toward that console. "Not if I can help it, Pinky—" She ducked past Daria, too surprised to move, and gritted her teeth as she aimed one of the bulky, protruding knob on the mindsifter against the button that opened the door. "…not by a long shot!" She squeezed her eyes shut, praying she'd only hit the one button, and not something else…and then Bastion howled in rage and thwarted desire. "She opened the blast doors!"

He lashed out in the excess of his emotion and punched Jubilee, sending the girl flying. "Misguided child! Do you have any idea what you've done?" He was going to break her. He would leave her in her cell without food and water and light and see how long she lasted—

"Sir!" Daria's voice cut into his thoughts, arresting his action. "They're cutting off pursuit by blocking the blast door and collapsing the entranceway around it!"

Jubilee's voice was full of triumph. "Betcha thought you'd broken me, huh, Pinky? You're such a loser." She watched, torn between pride and joy that her friends had gotten out…and desperately wanting them to come back. For her. _But they obviously don't even know I'm here,_ she thought. _Wolvie, please,oh God, please come back, don't leave me here alone!…_but the X-Men were getting into a hoversled sitting close to the mangled, blown up, blocked door, and they couldn't come back for her anyway without being caught again. She much preferred that they escape. Even if it meant leaving her behind.

Bastion gritted his teeth so hard he was sure they'd shatter. "Soon, Lee, if I do not succeed—all humanity will be the losers." He turned to the screen. "Daria, prepare a transfer module. I must return to the Xavier Institute." He turned and headed to the door, then addressed two of his bodyguards. "Take the child back to her cell. Leave her there alone. No food, no water. No light. Nothing. I will break her." He strode from the room as the guard gripped Jubilee's arm. Daria stared after Jubilee's stumbling back, shaking her head, then returned to her work with a frown.

Outside, Jean, Ororo, Sam, and Scott got into a waiting hoversled. Logan was lagging behind, and Scott turned to him. "Come ON, Wolverine! We have to get out of here…and get some answers!"

Logan looked back over his shoulder at the base, sitting silent behind them. There was an odd tugging, as if he'd forgotten something, left something back there that was very important but he couldn't put his finger on it…and a question nagged at the back of his mind. "Somebody opened that door for us, Slim. Now who woulda done that for us?"

"Never mind that now! If Bastion has declared open war on mutants we may be the only ones who can stop him!" Scott hauled Logan bodily into the seat of the hoversled and took control of the wheel. As they sped away, Logan stared back over his shoulder, still possessed by an odd sense of having left something important behind.

End notes:

Had to play fast and loose with this chapter, too, like I did with the previous one. All my respects to the creative team on Wolverine 115, but scene shifts that can be done easily in the comic books isn't as easily done in prose. I had to juggle some things around, so let me put it all into proper order here:

The sorting scene, which is the first one in this chapter, actually was placed in the comic book between two pages of Bastion's conversation with Xavier, so I moved that to take place after the conversation. I think I mentioned that in the end notes for last chapter. Also, Daria never actually calls Bastion up to the control room; on page 12, it's mentioned but there's no panel specifically describing that. I inserted that myself at the tail end of Bastion's conversation with Charles. Then I took Logan's escape from page 10 and 11 and put that with the results of that escape on page 13. I took the password scene from page 15 and stuck it with the escape on page 17, then took the control room scenes from page16 and tossed it in with the rest of the control room scenes on page 18. The exchange between the squad leaders was integrated into the control room scene, as was the X-Men trying to get out. I did that because I wanted to show what was happening from Jubes's point of view, and so we could get some insight into what she was thinking.

Thanks for everyone's patience in waiting till I had both chapters done! Happy reading!


	10. Escape

Chapter 10: Escape

They were free.

That was the only important thing, that her friends were free. They would find a way to stop Bastion's mad plans for mutantkind.

And then they'd come back for her.

Jubilee stubbornly pushed away to the back of her mind the nagging thought that maybe by the time they came back she'd be a pile of warm ashes in the incinerator they'd tried to put Wolvie in. She could survive. She would survive. She wouldn't give in to the numbing, crushing despair, the ever-present, increasing hunger pangs, the thirst that tormented her dry mouth. How long could someone go without food or water? She thought it was something like three to five days, but she wasn't sure. And how long was three days, anyway? _My time sense is so screwed I've lost track of the days. How long have I been here_, she thought dazedly, lying on the floor of the cell and staring blindly up at the shadowed ceiling. _How long? A week? A month? Naw, can't be a month,_ she told herself. Then that nagging voice popped back up and said, M_aybe. Maybe it has been._

_People always say that before you die your entire life flashes in front of your eyes. Hmm. So I guess I oughtta start with my earlier memories; livin' with Mom and Dad, watchin' TV…what was that show I always liked? 'Magnum P.I.'? Who was that dude in it? Tom…Tom something. Yeah, Tom Selleck. Man, he was cool. Yeah, he wasn't cool in everything he did, but he was cool as Magnum. And oh, in 'Quigley Down Under'. Yeah. That was neat-o, too. Geez, has it been a month? Could it have been so long?_

She stared into the darkness for a long time, thinking. Wondering. Remembering. It wasn't as if there was anything else she could do, after all…

In the control room, Daria saw Jubilee's wide-eyed, unblinking, glassy stare, and her heart twisted. Poor child. Poor, poor child. If she'd been able to arrange it without Bastion noticing, she would have freed Jubilee to go with her friends, with the big hairy guy with the claws. Jubilee had seemed to be particularly shaken up when she saw him on the screen. He was obviously someone she cared about a great deal. If only they'd stayed a little longer, just a few days, before they'd broken out; she would have found some way to tell them Jubilee and Professor Xavier were here. She wasn't worried about Xavier as much as she was worried about Jubilee; Bastion had been concentrating his efforts on the child, not the man.

One of Bastion's other assistants looked over her shoulder back at Daria. "What are you doing, Daria? Haven't you got work to do? You spend all your time staring at that freak." Without waiting for a reply, the other girl went back to what she was doing.

Daria raised a hand to the screen. There wasn't anything she could do about it now. Bastion had given his orders, and she had had obedience to Bastion's orders trained into her so that it was pretty damn near instinctive. She couldn't disobey him. Not without something terrible happening to her. _Still_, she thought as her finger traced the dusky discoloration of a bruise on Jubilee's cheek on the monitor, _I have to do something. I can't just stand by and do nothing. If Jubilee's a freak—after what happened to me when she used her powers on me—then what am I? Am I a mutant, like she thinks, or am I…something else?_

Daria sat down at her workstation and settled in to work, mechanically carrying out the tasks Bastion had set for her. Her body moved through its customary routine, doing this, doing that, while her mind whirled with thoughts, suppositions, possibilities. When the other assistant got off duty and headed down to the mess hall, Daria stayed behind…and for the first time since she'd gotten there, she called up her own file in Bastion's private database.

It came up sealed. Frowning, she tried again. Still the same result. She closed it down, typed in the password that Bastion had given her once to access his personal files, then tried to open her file again. This time, it opened without hesitation.

She stared at the screen, feeling her face grow paler. For there, spread out on the screen in front of her, was the truth about who—and what—she was. He had stored everything. Some of her was biological; most was not. Gradually, through a series of operations, he had grafted human-seeming flesh to a metal skeleton, added red-colored lubricating fluid just under the synthetic skin to simulate blood, then had Daria's positronic brain wired for obedience to Bastion and Bastion's directives, and wired to provide false memories. He had wired Daria to act, think, and look human.

But she wasn't. She wasn't. And Daria sat there, shocked into stillness, as her mind—my positronic brain, she corrected herself—worked to process these shocking new revelations. Finally shaking off her shocked stupor, she pulled up Bastion's file and opened it. And what she found was even more of a shock.

He was the same as she was. A mechanical being, an android. Except that he knew what he was. The memory she had seen on the monitors…that had been his own. He was an android, created by humans to defeat and subjugate mutantkind for mankind's salvation. It all made sense now.

Except that she no longer believed it.

She no longer believed that mutants were the greatest threat to mankind. Jubilee had made her see the error in that particular line of logic. Mutants were men; men were mankind. They were all the same—or as Jubilee had put it, "Same difference." If anything, Daria and Bastion were the freaks; they were the ones that didn't belong. Not Jubilee.

She called up her own schematics again…and it was no less disturbing this time than it had been the last time. Maybe even more so, knowing what she did now that the memories of her 'life' were false, planted there by the same hand that had created her, created the 'mutants are evil' programming, imprisoned and tortured Jubilee. And there were more like her, a lot more. The clinic Dr. Prospero was running on the surface that was giving crippled people another chance at being whole again—that was just another cover for what they were really doing; replacing crippled human organs and limbs with cybernetic and nanotech parts that would turn them into androids like her, and whose defensive systems would be triggered by the presence of a mutant close to them and cause them to lash out and destroy its target.

It was terrible. It was horrifying. And she didn't want to be a part of it. According to the directives programmed into her brain, she wasn't even supposed to be doing this; digging into Bastion's files, questioning her 'programming' was forbidden. But suddenly all she had was questions, questions she couldn't ask, was slightly afraid to ask because she knew she wasn't going to like the answer. There were control programs in place to keep this from happening. But in the process of attacking her, Jubilee's firecrackers had somehow damaged Daria's positronic brain, deleting the programming and leaving the way open for Daria to begin to ask 'why?'

She was the freak, not Jubilee. Jubilee was innocent. And with that realization, the last bit of Daria's programming went out the window and she suddenly, finally, felt free to follow the dictates of her own conscience.

_Wait. If I'm an android, do I even have a conscience?_ The thought made Daria pause in midstep, then she dismissed it. _It doesn't matter. What matters is making all the wrong things right. And the worst wrong—the one I had a hand in—was imprisoning and torturing Jubilee. It stops now._

She headed out of the control room.

Alone in her cell, Jubilee sighed and sat up. She'd gone through her entire life at least twice, and sitting there staring at the ceiling waiting to die wasn't helping her get there any faster. As she looked down at her folded legs, she saw a tiny gray mouse no bigger than her hand, sitting there nibbling at some of the spilled food left on the floor. "Hey," she said carefully, hoping not to startle it. She was getting lonely down here; in the darkness and the silence it was so easy to believe that everyone else in the world had been beamed up onto some big alien craft and she was the only one left. Seeing the small mouse brought some things into perspective for her.

The mouse jumped a little, but didn't scamper away; apparently the pickings were too good here. Jubilee smiled sadly at it as it cocked a beady little black eye at her. Cute. Maybe Emma would let her have one as a pet…if she ever got out of here. Which was seeming less and less likely with each passing moment. "So…" she said conversationally, "Any word from the governor?"

The hissing of the door opening caught her attention, and that of her little visitor. Jubilee flinched at the sudden brightness after so long in the dark, and squinted as her mousy friend scampered away. Bare head, short skirt… "…Daria!"

Daria stood in the doorway. "I'm a freak too."

She strode into the cell, her eyes full of determination. "If you're a freak, then so am I. At least you know where you came from. I'm not sure about any of that…and I'm afraid to find out the truth."

Jubilee rose to her feet by bracing her back against the wall. "But you may have been made that way by Bastion or someone else. Me, I was born like this. That's the difference…at least, that's the way Bastion sees it. That's why Zero Tolerance aren't hunting down Giant Man or Spider Man, I guess. Though they're next, I'm sure!"

Daria came to a stop in front of Jubilee. "That may be how Bastion sees things. But I don't." _Not anymore_, her mind amended, but she didn't say it aloud. "It isn't right that I'm free and you're not." She stepped behind Jubilee and started tugging at the straps. Confused, Jubilee twisted her head as best she could. "What are you doing?"

"Unhooking your restraints."

"I don't understand." Jubilee felt the straps loosen, and her arms suddenly felt a lot less cramped.

"We're getting out of here," Daria said firmly.

Jubilee rubbed the circulation back in her arms, trying not to grimace from the pain of the cramps as Daria checked the corridor. "All clear. Let's go."

Jubilee wasn't in the ultra-secure containment level, and there were very few people around, which only helped. They were able to get up to the surface before they were spotted. "Hey!" said another of Bastion's assistants, one who looked almost exactly like Daria (a fact that Daria had been 'programmed' not to notice) "Daria, where…what are—" And then she leaped for the wall communications unit and hit the intercom button as well as the alarm button. Alarms blared, but no one seemed to be able to get their wits together in time to stop Jubilee and Daria from reaching the surface level. And then they were outside, and Jubilee felt sunlight on her face for the first time in a very, very long time. And when she looked around, she finally knew where she was. She'd seen the Hulkbuster base several times in Xavier's files. So they were in New Mexico…

Daria stopped. "Get behind me. Wrap your arms around my neck. And hang on." Jubilee did so, and yelped in surprise as she felt her feet leave the ground. "Daria…!"

"Hang on." Daria sounded a little distracted, and Jubilee figured it would be better for her to shut up. She resolved to do that…and broke the resolution as she saw, below them, a group of figure burst from the facility entrance, preceded by Bastion. She could also hear a snatch of conversation.

Bastion: "What's going on?"

Another voice, female this time: "Jubilation Lee's escaped, sir."

Bastion: "How did she bypass her programming--? Never mind. Get them!"

Jubilee risked a quick glance behind her. Three Sentinels, gaining fast. "I don't want to rain on your parade, Daria, but they're gaining on us. Maybe we should surrender…it's a long drop from up here!" Although, considering what she had escaped from, she wasn't sure she was all that keen on going back…maybe death would be preferable…

Daria took the dilemma out of her hands. "No. I said I'd get you out of this and I will!"

Now both of them could hear the whirr of the Sentinels' anti-gravity mechanisms as they gained on the fleeing pair. "Target sighted," Jubilee heard one of them report.

"Sure you won't reconsider?" Jubilee asked Daria.

Daria made a decision. There was no way Jubilee's friends would accept her, the one who'd had a hand in imprisoning Jubilee. They'd use her against Bastion and Zero Tolerance. And Daria had had it with being used. There was no way she was going back to Bastion, either. So the only option left… "No! I have an idea!" she said to Jubilee. Best not to tell the girl what she planned; Jubilee might not let Daria continue.

"Well, whatever it is, you better do it fast!" Daria took that as her cue and banked sharply around an upward-projecting sandstone outcropping, and then dropped into a deep canyon once she was certain the Sentinels couldn't see them. She touched down lightly, and Jubilee slid from her back. "I'll fly off, draw them off your track. Head down to the bottom of this small canyon; if I remember correctly there should be a road down there somewhere. You can hitch a ride into town." Without waiting to hear Jubilee's whispered thanks, she launched herself in the air again.

The pursuing Sentinels had paused in the air above where they'd last seen Jubilee and Daria. "Target has vanished from Sensor Range. Downloading amplified scanner matrix to re-scan for—" The Sentinel broke off as it spotted Daria emerging from the canyon. "No need! There they are! Move it!" As they picked up the pursuit, one of them commented, "No, it's just the Daria unit…where's the mutant designate: Jubilee?"

The first Sentinel frowned. "We secure this one, Bastion can deprogram her…learn where the mutant is."

If Daria had had any doubts about her future after this, they were just dispelled. So, since her intended path and any other future she could possibly have all ended in the same inevitable conclusion, she chose to end it all on her own terms. She aimed for a hard sandstone outcropping and accelerated. Just before the impact with the stone blotted out her consciousness, a last thought flitted through her mind. I'm sorry, Jubilee. This doesn't make up for what happened, but at least you'll be free now…

And then there was nothing but darkness.

Down in the canyon, Jubilee saw the bright orange flower of fire that blossomed on the side of that sandstone outcropping, and her heart skipped a beat. The three sentinels, unable to change course in time, had died along with Daria. "I'll never be able to repay you, Daria. You're the bravest human/Sentinel/freak girl I've ever met. Thank you." She turned away from the sandstone outcropping with one last backward look, then made her plans. "So. Daria told me to work my way to the bottom of the gorge.She said that the gorge's high walls should protect me from the Sentinel's scanners. She said there's a road at the bottom where I could get a ride into town. Hmm. Sounds simple enough. Maybe I'll even see Wolvie there!" Her natural optimism started to yank her out of her depression, and as she started to trot off down the canyon, "I wonder how everyone at the school's been? I wonder what's been happening? Probably same old, same old. Let's face it, they can't get into trouble without me!" and yet, at the back of her mind despite her hopeful words, she had to wonder why no one had found her yet, why no one was even looking for her. Had things gone that badly back at the Academy?

End notes:

Thank to the creative team on Generation X issues 30 and 31 for the material in this chapter. The scene with Jubilee in the cell and some of Daria watching her is actually from #30; Daria's finding out who and what she is, is my creation. The escape scenes are from #31, credit for which has to go to Robinson/Bachalo/Vey. Thanks for the story, guys!

Anyone with any comments, questions, or concerns that you don't want to email or put in a review is welcome to come on over to my new Author's Forums:  
http/jaenellesfirstc.11. I will be posting news updates on stories in progress, brainstorming new ideas, postingaltchaps for stories in progress on request,posting advanceexcerpts to stories not yet posted here at and keeping my fans updated on publishing news for my mature-themed 'adult' stories. You can also get to know other fans andget help for your stories.Hope to see you there!

Stay tuned for the next chapter!


	11. Wolvie

Chapter 11: Wolvie

She ran.

At first she could think of nothing but getting away from there, and she concentrated single-mindedly on putting one foot in front of the other.

She'd looked for the road Daria said was there; and had found it, but it was more of a dusty track than a road, and it hadn't been used in a long time. "Well, if this road was ever used—and it was, duh, or there wouldn't be one here," she told herself, trying to think logically through the almost overwhelming hunger and thirst and exhaustion plaguing her body. "Then it has to go somewhere. Someone's gotta have used the road for somethin' at some point. So I guess I'd better follow it, and see where it goes. Beats goin' back there." So she'd followed the road until its traces were completely obliterated by desert dust and sand.

"Now what?" Jubilee stared ahead of her, at the expanse of sand broken only by a couple of cacti and some scrubby, water-starved brush, and then behind her, at the road that led back to the gorge, the base…and Bastion. "Uh-uh. Not an option. Ain't even gonna think about it." She studied the trackless expanse of sand in front of her, frowned, then sighed in exasperation. "Woulda been really cool if there was, like, a sign right here that says 'Next town this way' or something like that, but I guess that'd be askin' too much, huh?" she told a nearby cactus. She looked ahead of her, off to her left, where the sun would soon set, and then east. Then she shrugged. "Well, guess I'll just keep goin' straight till I hit something," she muttered to herself. "There's gotta be somethin' out here besides cactuses and dead branches. Wish I had Wolvie's sense of smell; I'd be able to just take a sniff and I'd know exactly where everyone is." She sighed. "Oh, well, let's get moving, Lee."

The afternoon sun beat down, and she found she had to stop more often to rest. The heat was relentless, and she wished passionately, more than once, that she could take off the hated jumpsuit. But she wore nothing under it, and anyway, the fastenings of the thing were behind her and she couldn't reach them. And if she took it off, she'd likely get badly sunburned. Not fun. Her body was already aching from various bruises, sweat stung her old cuts and wounds, and the ache deep in her body was quickly being superseded by the ache in her side from lack of breath. And having eaten nothing but the absolute minimum of food for God knew how long, she wasn't in the best physical shape either. She wanted to stop, to sit down and rest, but she was too terrified of being caught and taken back. Instead she struggled on, throughout that morning and afternoon, onward through the desert, interspersing short bursts of running with periods of walking. As the shadows lengthened, and the sun sank lower in the west, despair began to take over._ Is there no end to this freakin' desert_? She asked herself tiredly. _Am I just gonna have to run on till the heat and thirst get to me and then drop over dead? Not a nice thought, that_. She stubbornly went on.

Well, no matter what happened to her, the X-Men were free, and they were okay. Wherever they were. "Wolvie's got a healing factor; he can take care of himself just fine. Jean and Scott can take care of each other, and Sam and Ro will both be just fine."

When was the last time she'd felt heat like this? Back in… "Australia. Way back then, when I first met Wolvie. The Reavers staked him to that humongo cross and just left him there in the sun to fry all day." She shuddered at the memory. "That was the worst thing I'd ever seen anybody do to anyone. Oh, God, Wolvie, where are you? I miss you so much right now…" and she lost some of her body's precious moisture in a fat tear that slid slowly down her cheek. Suddenly overwhelmed with despair, exhaustion, and loneliness, she slumped to the ground and rested her folded arms on her knees for a moment, fighting the heaving, dry sobs that wracked her thin body. When she tried to get up, she found her body stubbornly refusing to move. "Probably just need a rest," she reasoned to herself. And stayed where she was until she could finally force her exhausted muscles to move again. She wasn't well-rested, by any means, but a look at the setting sun told her she should pick up the pace, try to reach a town or something, soon. She put on a short burst of speed, but soon grew tired. "Let's face it, Jubilation Lee, you are not a long distance runner! Too many sugar bombs and not enough laps around the biosphere. But you got this far! You can't give up now! Not after Daria sacrificed herself so you could escape from Bastion…poor Daria." She paused, bending double, holding her sides. "C'mon, Jube! Ol' Wolvie wouldn't give up!" Thinking about Logan gave her the impetus she needed to stagger on a few more steps. "The Wolvster would keep going, no matter what! He would!"

Darkness fell, quicker than she had expected, being a city girl. Out here in the desert, there were no buildings obstructing the horizon, so the sky went from twilight to full dark in what seemed to her a very short time. Concentrating on keeping her feet moving, she ignored her surroundings, and only when she realized she couldn't see her feet clearly in front of her did she look up and realize the stars were out and the moon was rising. "Sheesh! How'd it get to be so dark all of a sudden?" She paused, straightened, and recoiled as she saw a dark shape in front of her. "And who's that?"

Five miles north, the recently freed X-Men crouched in the shadow of a rocky outcropping. Their stealthy approach to the fortress-like 'clinic', waiting silently on the rise above them, had gone seemingly undetected. After escaping from Bastion's base the previous day, they had taken shelter in a squatters' camp with a blind ex-pilot who called himself Mustang. He and the rest of his companions had been receiving free treatment and experimental state-of-the-art prosthetics from the 'Doctor Prospero' who ran the clinic. Logan's reconnaissance the night before had uncovered its true function; turning unsuspecting human beings into Prime Sentinel sleeper agents. They were doing the same thing to Mustang and his friends. For three of them…and God knew how many others…the process was already complete. After a brief but violent skirmish to subdue the nascent Primes, the X-Men made the only decision they could. They were going to shut down Prospero's 'Frankenstein factory' even though it meant going back in the direction they just came, and Bastion's headquarters.

Scott outlined his assault plan and assigned each of them their tactical role. _Basic two-pronged attack,_ Logan noted, his attention divided between Scott, the desert, and the clinic. _Cyke an' me take the front door, 'Ro an' Sam go through the roof, an' Jeannie hangs back as support._ Nothing complicated; it was a routine Danger Room scenario, unless they were walking into a nest of fully-activated Prime Sentinels. And he was still certain they could handle that. The only thing that unnerved him was the quiet. Other than themselves, the only things making any noise were the prairie dogs digging underground off to his right; some bats looking for a meal that tickled the limits of his hearing, and a slight breeze rustling the sparse scrubby foliage. There was no whirr from an air conditioner or even the buzz of a generator from the clinic. He wasn't used to such silence; it didn't even get this quiet in the forest.

And then the wind shifted, blowing in from the south, stirring the hairs on Logan's back and arms. Reflex kicked in, borne of long habit, and he took a long whiff. The faint scent was almost smothered by the heat, dust, and heavy, unpleasant scent of the creosote bushes; so faint he would have missed if it weren't so familiar…and so out of place.

_…Jubilee? Here? Impossible, she's s'posed ta be in Massachusetts_! But he needed to be sure, so he crept around to where he could get a deeper lungful of air. To the north he heard the faint hum of a bus engine approaching. He inhaled slowly, once. Again. And then he knew. He might as well have been looking straight at her. Behind him Scott said something about 'Wolverine and his solo-act', but he tuned that voice out completely as all his attention focused on that scent. It was faint, but unmistakable. _It couldn't…it has to be…couldn't be anyone else…but how in hell…?_

Forgetting completely about Scott and the others, he ran off into the desert. He didn't know how, or why. All he knew was that Jubilee was out there in the Chihuahuan Desert while a whole swarm of Sentinels were flying around with a vendetta against the X-Men, and he was going to bring her back. He didn't have any answers; wouldn't have answers until he saw her…so he put the questions aside and focused single-mindedly on the task of finding her.

Then a realization hit him that made his stomach twist. Jubilee's scent was coming from the direction of the facility they'd just escaped. It couldn't be a coincidence. Changing direction slightly, he changed his pace into a full ground-eating sprint as he raced back the way the X-Men had come the day before. Pausing occasionally to take a whiff of the cooling evening breeze confirmed his grim suspicion; the closer he got to the Hulkbuster base the stronger her scent became. _Okay, darlin', I know yer out here. Now just stay safe long enough fer me ta find ya!_ It was as close as he'd ever come to praying.

Questions swirled through his mind as he tried to make sense of the situation. _I smell her, so I know she's alive. But what the hell is she doin' here so close t'Bastion's base? Sean an' Emma bring the kids out here t'try an' rescue us? What're thay thinkin' riskin' the kids like that? Wouldn't put it past Frosty; some piece o' work she is! Think she'd've learned after losin' her first batch o' students! But Irish? Expected better o' him. I'm gonna kick both their asses when I find 'em fer bringin' Jubilee in the middle o' this. Ain't like we needed rescuin'…unless maybe it was them who opened the door fer us. How'd they know where we were? And what then? They bust in, spring the door, an' bust back out. An' now they're out here in the desert gettin' away…so how come the only one I smell's Jubilee? She get_ _separated? Or maybe she'd the only one who made it outta there! Dammit! What the hell is she doin' all the way out here by herself? I can't even tell what direction she's goin'—inta trouble or away from it---or if she's standin' still…Dammit, Jubilee, where the hell are you?_

Logan's wondering stopped abruptly. A whistle followed by an odd, almost metallic plinking sound ahead and to his left brought him skidding into a low crouch. Overcoming an instant light-headedness and the sudden urge to gasp air into straining lungs Logan spun and scanned the horizon for any sign of movement. Nothing. Forcing himself to take deep, quiet breaths, he cocked an ear toward the source of the noise, claws extended, ready to attack. Another low whistle and a clucking drew his eyes to the ground. Small shapes waddled like wind-up toys at the foot of a creosote bush, tiny plumes whipping and bobbing. _Quail! A buncha damn birds!_ Jagged bone claws retreated, sliding back into his forearms through wounds that winked closed and vanished.

Logan kept still and listened as he caught his breath, hoping to hear something, some clue that would point him toward Jubilee. Quail. A pack rat. Snake scales scraping over rock. Those bats again. _No---different bats_. Dry wind…and a distant muffled whine that might be the sound of a Sentinel's antigrav jets. _Where are ya, darlin'? Send up a paff or something._ He wanted her to, but he also knew why she couldn't. He wanted to call out to her, roar her name across the empty darkness until she answered back. But the darkness wasn't empty; Scott had told Sam earlier that they were still well inside the Sentinels' search perimeter, and he himself had noticed they were searching outward. Jubilee might be in close enough to avoid the main search but she might still be spotted by incoming or outgoing patrols. Hell, they might have her already! The thought sent a shiver of anger running through him. _She's just a kid. Any of those bastards touch her, I swear I'll kill every last one of them…_

The next breeze carried her scent so clearly he could almost taste her. He was close. It was strongest from down and around a low hump pf boulders off to the right. Logan followed that trail at a jog, alert to the subtleties buried in that scent. Exhaustion, dried sweat, pain…and fear. _Jubilee! Hold on, darlin', I'm almost there!_

The shape looming out of the dark was certainly tall enough to be a Sentinel, and Jubilee's terror of being found gave way to a rush of adrenaline. She brought her hands up and fired a burst of plasmoids at the shape. "I'm not going back to the Hulkbuster base! You can't make me! You can't—" she broke off abruptly as the light from her plasmoids revealed not a Sentinel, but a…cactus?

She sank to the ground in front of it, laughing a little at herself in relief. "Whew. The heat is making me jumpy. That was a stupid mistake!"

"Correct." A heavy, mechanical, indubitably Sentinel, voice came from behind her. She froze, her heart plummeting, eyes widening, as the voice continued. "Setting off your pyrotechnics in the dark was not only a stupid mistake, mutant, it was a fatal one!"

She got to her feet, whirling in the same movement, ignoring her muscles' protest, and saw one of the big black and purple hunks of metal standing behind her. "I was returning to base to replace a defective power cell and I saw an unnatural flash in the desert. My sensors registered your bio-signature."

Jubilee braced herself for a fight. "I'm not going back there!" She couldn't go back there. Now that Bastion had what he wanted, she was of no use to him anymore, and he'd give her to the guards…

"That is true. Bastion has changed your status from 'capture and detain' to 'terminate'. Do not resist, mutant. Your pyrotechnic powers are not sufficient to overcome me—" His targeting field moved to pin Jubilee in his crosshairs, and she gathered her power for a brief, concentrated burst. She didn't have a lot left, but if she could just stun him, maybe she could escape in the darkness…

"You ever hear of David and Goliath, chips-for-brains?" she hollered at it, sending a stream of plasmoids at the glassy lens of the targeting eye, disrupting its visual locator and targeting mechanisms. "Amazing what you can do with accurate placement, huh?" At least her time with Frosty—and all those sessions in the Danger Room—had taught her that much control.

A hideous mechanical _skree_ing came from the damaged Sentinel. "Major sensory input systems damage! Communications suite and visual receptors offline! Switching to infrared imaging!" and a second later… "Targeting system damaged!"

It tried to send a burst of answering fire at her, but she ducked it easily. "You are fried, ya big bully!" she cried furiously. "And I am outta here!" She turned and ran.

The Sentinel recovered somewhat and went airborne, pursuing her with off-target fire. Jubilee ducked and dodged, weaving, avoiding the fire easily, but it kept pursuing. "Escape is not possible, girl. Infrared tracking and manual weapons targeting are quite sufficient to complete your termination!"

"You have to catch me first, dummy—" Jubilee wasn't as confident as she sounded; the only thing keeping her on her feet now was adrenaline, and she was fast reaching the end of her reserves of that too.

Logan tracked her down to a flat area, his pace driven by his breathing; long inhale, then a sharp puff, like a steam engine fueled by her scent carried on the breeze. It spilled from a gap between two low, rocky ridges less than a hundred yards ahead, tinged with fear and anger. Logan headed for that break, his stride lengthening. His pulse quickened, his senses sharpened and began to focus on the starlight-illuminated path directly ahead of him as items in his peripheral vision faded into shadow. He could also hear her now; her voice was still mostly indistinct, but he could make out a few words. "You can't make me!" The distinctive rainbow colors of her plasmoids lit the contour of the left ridge with sizzles and pops.

_Ain't nobody gonna make ya do anythin' ya don't wanna as long's I'm alive!_ Logan burst into a flat-out run straight for that beacon, claws unsheathing. Something was attacking Jubilee, and he drove forward like an angry wave as his pulse hammered in his ears. Then he heard another voice; deep, toneless, reverberating mechanically. _She's bein' attacked by Sentinels!_ Another barrage of paffs triggered a mechanical screech and a stench of scorched metal and melting plastic. He'd never been so glad to see anything in his life. At least she was fighting back, at least she was able to fight back…and then he saw the huge shadow rise into the air above the ridge twenty yards away. His breath caught in his lungs as the Sentinel opened fire.

And there was no answering burst of Jubilee's plasmoids.

_No! No, no, NO!_ It was the last thing that went through his mind that even resembled rational thought. The rational parts of the mind that belonged to the man called Logan dissolved into fractured pieces, subsumed by a tidal wave of hatred borne of his intense protective instincts for the little girl he cared about so deeply, and all that was left was the need to tear apart whatever was threatening her until nothing at all remained. Rage washed his vision in red. Normally he would fight to keep it in check, but now he welcomed it, letting the fire consume him as he raced to Jubilee's defense. He charged the last few yards in a frenzied blur, lunging from the ridge into the airborne Sentinel from behind.

It was dark, and she really couldn't see what was in front of her even if she was paying attention, but she still cursed herself as her foot disappeared in a prairie dog hole. It put a halt to her precipitous flight, and she cried out as she fell, feeling the ache shoot up the abused muscles in her legs. _This is it_, she thought. _This is it, this is the end of the road. I can't run on a twisted ankle. Well, if it's gonna kill me, I'm goin' down fightin'_! She gathered the rest of her strength and prepared to fire off every last bit of energy into destroying the thing…

And an inhuman roar split the night as a heavy weight smashed into the Sentinel's back. Jubilee had never been so glad to hear anything in her whole life. Bone claws, as hard as tooth enamel, ripped deep into its torso, spraying them both in sparks and jagged metal and plastic shrapnel. With his right hand Logan tore out the heavy cable that, if it had been a biological being, would have been a spine as his left hand slashed at its head, shearing metal. Half of the Sentinel's jaw exploded in a shower of microchips…

The claws ripped relentlessly into the twitching Sentinel even before it hit the ground with him on it, their jagged edges shearing through coolant lines, fiber-optic cables, and other things Jubilee had no name for…and the Sentinel fell back onto the sand, now no more than a heap of smoldering scrap. Logan turned toward Jubilee, and the flames of fury behind his eyes started to die as his rational self struggled to regain control.

Jubilee didn't wait. She'd never been afraid of Wolvie when he was in this state, and all she could think of right now was that she was safe, he'd saved her, and she was just so damn relieved to see him. "Wolvie?" She ran forward, wrapping her arms around him in a huge hug. She ignored the sweat that matted his coarse body hair, and buried her cheek in it, nestling as close as she could, and her tension drained away. Wolvie was here. Her best friend, her protector, her mentor.

He drew breath, possibly to say something, but she headed him off. She didn't want to ruin the moment with words; for just a moment, all she wanted from him was a hug and reassurance that she was okay, they were both alive, and she'd made it. Against all odds, she'd made it. "Don't say anything, Wolvie," she whispered around the lump in her throat. "Just hold me tight." She felt his arms wrap around her, felt him tuck her head under his chin, and safe in his arms now, she let tears of relief stream down her cheeks. _No matter what happens now, he's here, and he won't let anything, anyone, hurt me. I'm home._

_Jubilee…She's still alive! She's okay! I didn't lose her_…Logan took a long, slow breath as his healing factor overcame the sudden exhaustion and initial disorientation that initially followed the berserker rage. For a long moment he just held her, savoring the feel of her nestled against him. Only Jubilee would dare approach him when he was like this; only she could wrap her arms around him and bring him back with that simple touch. He'd never understood how, but it didn't matter now. She was alive, and he had her back, and nothing was going to hurt her now. With all that had happened since the last time he'd seen her, he'd almost forgotten how much he missed her.

The last time he saw her it hadn't gone quite the way he'd hoped. Sean had invited him up to teach a real-world combat survival seminar at the Academy. He'd been on the verge of refusing, but then Jubilee had written him a letter asking him to come, so he'd used that as an excuse and walked from Westchester to Snow Valley, trying to keep to the woods as much as possible. He'd been in a feral state, and the five days it took to get there walking had given him time he needed to calm himself down and drive the animal in him deep enough that she wouldn't see it and worry about him. Then he'd encountered that 'Token' spirit in the biosphere. He'd faced it, drove it out…but doing so had reawakened the animal in him. He couldn't let Jubilee see him like that; he didn't want to see the stricken look on her face. He'd left the same night. When he'd come back from visiting her in Massachusetts the last time, Scott had ragged on him for a week about having 'snuck out' on the X-Men again. He hadn't felt the need to tell old One-Eye where he'd been, and Scott never asked. Just one day to let her know he still cared…he didn't feel like it was enough, but that was all he could do. But it could never be enough.

Why was she out here all alone? Why wasn't she safe up in Massachusetts? Where the hell were Frost and Cassidy? He had a million questions, but she pleaded, "Don't say anything," and he never could deny her anything he asked for. So he held her, stroked the dust from the ragged ends of her hair, and let her cry, using his senses to answer some of his questions.

She was exhausted, pushed to her limits. She was probably longing to fall asleep in his arms but it felt to him like she was afraid to let go, as if he'd vanish if she didn't hold on. In his arms she felt so tiny. Fragile. She was also half-starved and dehydrated, and he cursed. She hadn't gotten like this overnight (he could feel her ribs and the tiny, sharp bumps of her vertebrae through this…plastic prison uniform?) The material stuck to her like vinyl coated canvas, glued to her back by sweat and grime. He couldn't feel anything under it, and he wished he had a shirt or something more comfortable to offer her.

The stench of burned Sentinel hung heavy in the air, and he had to sort through that to get to Jubilee's emotions, wrapped up in her body scent. Dried sweat and desert dust. Relief at seeing him. Exhaustion. Terror, receding now but still strong. Pain, lots of it, from an overtaxed body. Blood, faint but still there. And that last scent forced him to reluctantly let go of her and take in her physical appearance. An ugly jumpsuit, made of some sort of plastic that had almost cloth-like flexibility but still thin enough to tear (her upper right sleeve was torn) and the sleeve itself was pushed back to her elbows. It had the same sterile non-smell that tainted everything Bastion had touched. _She's been inside Bastion's prison, like we were. Probably the whole time we were there…an' we—I—never knew!_ The exposed skin of her arms was sunburned, but the redness of the skin couldn't hide the abrasions on her wrists, the skin raw from something having chafed at the flesh there. He reached for that wrist, to bring it into the moonlight so he could see it.

Jubilee gasped and pulled away, taking an involuntary step back. Logan raised his eyes to her face in surprise, but what he wanted to say died on his lips as he saw the sleepless shadows under her eyes, and her thin face streaked with dried blood, dust and sweat. Her still-flowing tears made two clean tracks on either side of her nose, and in those clean tracks he saw large, dusky bruises. Horrified, he reached out to touch them.

Jubilee wasn't even thinking; her exhausted body just reacted to the upraised hand. Her hands came up in a_ don't hurt me!_ gesture, her shoulders hunched, and she seemed to shrink into herself, becoming smaller, as if by twisting up she could make herself less of a target for a blow. Logan sucked in his breath. "Jubes…" his voice was soft, full of pain at what he saw. "Jubes, what happened to you?" Along with the dismay in his voice was a cold anger. _She's never pulled away from me like this. Never_. He recognized the body language; in all his years of living he'd seen too many women react after being brutalized not to recognize the signs when he saw it. _Oh no…oh, God, no! Not Jubilee. She's just a kid! My gutsy, bubbly little Jubilee._ "Jubilee, what happened?"

Her reaction spoke volumes. She pulled even farther away from him, and nervously rolled down her sleeves to cover the abrasions he now saw on both wrists. "Bastion's had me in the Hulkbuster base for a while," she said softly, lowering her head so Logan wouldn't see the tears glinting on the edge of her lashes. She couldn't tell him everything. She mustn't tell him everything. He'd want to go tear Bastion apart for what had happened to her, and he couldn't go back there; they'd capture him for certain.

She didn't have to say anything more. Vividly across his mind flashed the memory of Sam, lying on the floor being beaten by the human guards…and the vision of Jubilee lying there instead of Sam made him want to paint the desert red with the blood of those who had done this to her. A low growl of anger rumbled in his chest.

Jubilee looked at him nervously, plainly upset. "Logan, please, it wasn't a big deal," she whispered, her throat constricting in fear. "They just…kinda pushed me around some. Nothing serious. Please."

His anger was upsetting her further, and that was the last thing he wanted to do. With difficulty he pushed the anger down and said quietly, "Are ya okay? Truth."

Jubilee nodded slowly, still tense but relaxing a little. He sighed and swallowed his rage. _We'll talk about it later, when yer ready. Right now we gotta get ya outta here an' get ya some water._ When the current emergency was over, she'd come to him to talk, just like she always had. It could wait until then. "Where're the other kids? Sean or Frosty here with ya?"

Jubilee shook her head wearily. "Bastion kidnapped me from the Academy in the middle of a fight. I'm alone out here."

Logan filed that bit of information away as something he needed to talk to Sean and Emma about. How the hell had Bastion managed to kidnap one of their students right out from under their noses? "Okay. Let's get back to the others."

Jubilee craned her head past him, peering off into the desert night. "Jean, 'Ro, they aren't with you?"

He shook his head. "Left 'em plannin' an assault on a Sentinel factory we found posin' as a clinic, back there a ways," he said, jerking his thumb behind him. "Smelled you out here, came to get ya." He looked past her, scanning the desert. "The sooner we're back with 'em the better." He started a steady jog back the way he'd come. Jubilee followed, trying gamely to keep up with him, but her wrenched ankle wasn't making it easy, and her current state of exhaustion didn't help either. Finally Logan couldn't stand to see her push herself anymore and stopped. "Jubes," he said as gently as he could, "Yer hurt, an' we ain't gonna be able to make it back in any decent amount o' time with ya limpin' along. I understand how ya feel, but things'd go much faster if I carry ya."

Jubilee sighed and bit her lip. Logan was right, speed was a necessity. And she couldn't run. She stepped up to his broad back, forced down her sudden aversion to being touched, and wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling her still-sore parts in contact with him. _This is Wolvie,_ she told her tense body. _He's not gonna hurt me_. She had to fight to keep from pulling away as he hooked his arms under her knees, but it was a relief to get her weight off her feet, and to stop moving for a while. She rested her cheek against his jouncing shoulder as they got moving.

Logan didn't miss her sigh, or the sudden intake of breath as she settled firmly against his back. That jumpsuit was hiding a lot of bruises and sore body parts, and he hated causing her any more pain, but they really _really_ had to get back to the others…and maybe being around Jean and Ororo would ease some of her tension around him.

They headed back the way he'd come.

End Notes:

Many, many thanks to my coauthor Megalictis, without whose help this chapter couldn't have been written…or if it had, it wouldn't be as you see it now! Thanks also to the folks at who gave me a lot of very helpful issue reference information. Thanks also go to the creative team on Wolverine #117 (which is the issue this chapter is taken) Hama/Yu/Tadeo for giving me so much fuel for the imagination! I owe this story to you guys!

This chapter was by far the most challenging to write, to date, simply because there was so much left unsaid, and a lot to guess at. I hope I did a decent job; if you think I missed something, please let me know! Thank you!---Jaenelle


	12. BioBomb

Chapter 12: Bio-bomb

They saw the smoke from the bus lodged in the side of the building some time before they actually saw the thing. Against one wall, Logan could see his four teammates, could see Jean's distinctive, unmistakable flaming red hair and Ororo's flowing silver locks, and he could hear a bit of their conversation.

Scott was speaking. "…I don't understand it. Why would Logan desert us when we needed him the most?"

Jean sounded puzzled herself but defended Logan firmly: "He wouldn't, Scott. There must have been some overriding reason—" She broke off as Sam jerked upright, staring out at the desert in disbelief. "Somebody's comin'—walkin' outta the desert!"

Logan smiled grimly as he trotted up, Jubilee still piggybacking, waving enthusiastically, her fatigue momentarily forgotten. "I see ya started the brouhaha without me!" He came to a stop against the wall beside Scott.

Jubilee, wincing a little and bravely trying to hide it, ran over to the two women who had been surrogate mother and big sister to her since she'd joined the X-Men. "Jean! Storm!" and then, "Sam! I thought I'd never see you again—I thought—" and to her embarrassment, she broke down again, sobbing in relief and happiness as she flung her arms around the women. Logan realized there was no hesitation this time; whatever she had endured, it had happened specifically at the hands of men, and didn't affect the way she reacted to women at all. Good. When this was over, maybe Jean could talk to Jubilee.

Ororo and Jean returned the hug, with interest. "Hush, Jubilee," Ororo said quietly, taking in at a glance Jubilee's battered, bruised appearance and torn clothing. "We are together again."

Jean closed her eyes as she hugged Jubilee, doing a quick mental assessment. The jumpsuit marked Jubilee as one of Bastion's captives, and the bruises on Jubilee's face didn't bode well. She didn't have a lot of time to do an in-depth psychic scan of Jubilee's mind, but the surface impressions were pretty telling. Relief. Exhaustion, pain, a lot of it, centering in…Jean winced mentally, and made a note to talk to Jubilee once the current emergency was over and they were all safe.

Off to one side, Scott stared incredulously at the young girl, then turned to Logan, questions spilling out of his mouth almost faster than he could ask them. "What happened? How did she get out here? Was this why you ran off—"

Logan looked at Jubilee, still caught up in her reunion with Jean and 'Ro. "Bastion had her locked up in the Hulkbuster Base—the same joint we escaped from. Apparently it extends hundreds of feet below the desert floor. There's no tellin' what else the government's got goin' on in there." Scott looked at Jubilee again, opened his mouth to say something—and Logan cut him off. "She's had a rough time, so don't bug her about it just yet." Then, with a grim smile, "Ya really didn't need me here, did ya, Slim?"

Leaving Jubilee with Jean and Ororo, Scott and Sam took Logan inside. "We had a little help," Sam started.

Logan grinned wolfishly, teeth showing whitely in his face. "I know. I heard the bus comin' right as I caught a whiff o' Jubilee."

Sam filled him in. "Before we could stop 'em, those ol' boys from the trailer park, they plowed right through the front door…" he shoved open a door at the end of the short hallway. "But once inside, all we found was this…"

Jubilee noticed Logan leaving out the corner of her eye, and relaxed a little. She was really glad to see him, and he'd saved her, and she loved him for that, but right now she was torn between wanting him to hold her and hug her tight and never let her go and wanting to paff him as far away as she could. She'd had to fight down her aversion to being touched as they traveled back across the desert the way he'd come, as they got back to where he'd left the X-Men. She had given Sam a wide berth, and Scott too. She simply didn't want to be around men right now. And she hoped it wouldn't be obvious.

She should have known she couldn't keep anything from a telepath.

Jean probed Jubilee's mind as Jubilee rambled on, paying only partial attention to Jubilee's retelling of her capture from the Massachusetts Academy. "…and then this big dude with white hair shows up outta nowhere, and he says his name is Bastion, and then Mondo like, comes up and Bastion just blows him away—_blam!—_like that, and then he grabbed me and…"

Jean tuned it out, focusing on what Jubilee was trying to hide. She'd seen the abrasions on Jubilee's wrists; had felt the tension in the younger girl's body as Jubilee fought to hide it…and she'd also felt Logan's emotions as he saw Jubilee wince and try to hide it. With Logan's enhanced senses, things about Jubilee's current condition would be more readily apparent than a psychic probe would be, because Jubilee was also trying to shield her mind from Jean's psychic probe. Not well; she'd never been very good at it, and usually when she was feeling strongly about something, Jubilee would project her emotions all over the place. But now all of a sudden her metal defenses were a bit stronger, as if she'd had a lot of time to practice recently.

And the implications of that troubled Jean. Back when Jubilee had first come to the mansion, she had been taught to shield her thoughts from the other telepaths; Charles, Betsy, and Jean herself. It hadn't been that hard, since Betsy hadn't even known Jubilee was at the X-Men's Australian base until Jubilee had come out of hiding. Jubilee already had some kind of mental shield that activated automatically when she was actively hiding. It wasn't foolproof, by any means, so they'd taught her to shield herself. At the mansion, however, it hadn't really been necessary, since none of the three telepaths was particularly interested in the contents of Jubilee's mind. Even when she'd done something wrong, it hadn't been necessary to ferret out the truth about anything psychically because Jubilee openly admitted what she'd done when pressed. She'd found out truth from her own mouth was preferable to truth weaseled out of her by one of the mansion's telepaths, and things always went harder for her if she didn't admit to her wrongdoing; and Logan himself had taught her to take responsibility for what she'd done.

So, while Jubilee had been taught to shield, she didn't actively practice it because there was no need. And that had been the case the last time Jean had seen her, when she came for a quick visit home. Now Jubilee's mind was shielded, heavily, but there were cracks in it from exhaustion and mental fatigue. And that kind of mental exhaustion…Jean wondered what Bastion could have done to cause Jubilee that kind of mental fatigue, but Jubilee wasn't letting Jean in. The cracks in that mental armor let some things out; Jean got a fleeting glimpse of a woman, girl really, not much older than Jubilee; a glimpse of a dark cell, the mental picture permeated with a sense of hopeless, despair, and guilt…and a control room, with buttons, switches, and all sorts of control…and Bastion, whom Jean had barely seen, but his image was graven indelibly in Jubilee's mind.

Also of some concern was Jubilee's thinness, and the bruising on her face and arms. And of course, the shorn hair that had partially grown out but was still jagged-edged. Ororo, while appearing to be listening to Jubilee, was also looking her over, taking in details with eyes trained by years of thieving to notice details. Jean sent a message over to Ororo. **Does she look too thin to you?**

_Indeed._ Ororo's mindvoice was tinged with dismay. _There is a great deal Jubilee is not telling us, Jean, and the mere fact that she feels the need to keep this to herself and not share it with us is cause for concern._ _She has never felt as though she could not talk to one of us before._

**Do those look like restraint marks on her wrists?**

_Yes. And it horrifies me beyond belief, Jean. We know he was cruel, cold and uncaring…but could he possibly have been_ this_ cruel to a _child

**Bastion kidnapped her from the Academy. From the Academy, Ororo. Right under Emma's and Sean's noses. **Jean shook her head quietly.** Emma's a telepath; even if Sean were distracted (which I assume he was from what she's telling us) Emma should have felt Jubilee's consciousness drop out of the telepathic web. Charles and I both do that; we set up 'telepathic radar' when things start to go wrong. She should have located and kept all of them in her 'telepathic' sight, so when Jubilee's mind suddenly dropped from her 'radar' she should have known. And then she should have alerted us…or someone…that Jubilee was missing. Look at how thin Jubilee is; that's not a matter of a few days, or a week, that's a couple of weeks, maybe even a month, of cruelty. Ororo, I don't think I'd like to be Emma, and to a lesser extent, Sean…when Logan finally gets up there to talk to them. Of all of us, Logan feels the strongest emotions for her. I don't understand what it is that they have together…but it's so strong that I wouldn't be able to predict what would happen to Logan if something were to happen to Jubilee. And I hope I never find out.**

And suddenly people started pouring out of the clinic door, panicked, running, screaming. Jean, Ororo, and Jubilee turned, just in time to see Sam blasting out of the door carrying a limp figure in his arms, and Scott half-carrying another wounded person. Jubilee gasped audibly. "What happened in there? Where's Wolvie?" she asked Scott.

Scott replied to all three of them, though his face was turned in Jean's direction. "Mustang turned out to be one of Bastion's sleeper units—"

Jubilee narrowed her eyes in anger, and pointed an accusatory finger at him. "And you left Wolvie in there with him?" She turned and ran for the door of the clinic, ignoring Sam's shouted, "Jubilee, come back here! Y'all can't—"

Ororo cut him off. "By the Goddess, my friends—look! Hundreds of Sentinels, approaching from the horizon! How many did Bastion twist into cruel parodies of life?" She stared at them. "How many?" she breathed.

Jubilee heard Ororo's exclamation, but ignored it. Wolvie was in here, somewhere, and she had to find him. _Dear God,_ she whispered, _please let me find him. He's all I have, don't let anything happen to him, I just found him again, please don't let me lose him…_and she rounded a corner, and there was Wolvie, _her_ Wolvie, flying backward as a Prime Sentinel's killing blast knocked him backwards into a wall. The Sentinel facing him had Mustang's features, but a Prime Sentinel's uniform. And it's voice. "I am sorry, Logan. But if your kind is left unchecked, it is only a matter of time before mankind is extinct." Chills ran down Jubilee's spine; it was the same drivel Bastion had spouted.

Logan pushed himself upright, his healing factor already going to work on the charred hole in his chest. Nevertheless, he was still struggling. "I ain't tryin' ta save my life, Mustang…I'm tryin' ta save yours."

His words didn't make any sort of impression on the Prime Sentinel whose human form belonged to a man named Mustang. Jubilee heard the high-pitched _bleep_ that meant the Sentinel had turned on it's targeting sensors to 'terminate'. And she acted.

She burst into the room, her twisted ankle forgotten, her fists blazing with all the power she could muster in her current exhausted state. "You let my Wolvie be!" she screamed, thrusting her fists in front of the surprised Prime Sentinel/Mustang's face. "You just let him be!" Remembering how she'd managed to hold off the Prime Sentinel in the desert, she aimed for his eyes as she released everything she had.

And she got the desired result. "Vision receptor fault! Photo-sensor overload!" and then, somewhat more human-sounding, "My eyes!" Jubilee backed away, gathering herself for another burst of power, but that was rendered superfluous. "I can't see again!" It was Mustang's voice, though still sounding partially mechanical. "—again? Oh, Lord! What have I done?" His expression went from a mechanical stoicism to one of disbelief and remorse.

Logan went up to him, reaching out, as Jubilee reabsorbed her unused plasmoids into herself. "Nothin' ya coulda prevented, bub," he said, no trace of anger in his voice. "Nothin' ya coulda prevented. I ain't gonna hold it against ya, so don't hold it against yerself." To Jubilee, he said, "Hey. Check that desk over there; maybe there's somethin' we can use ta figure out how ta reverse the change and deprogram the sleeper units." Jubilee went obediently over to the desk, rummaging around in it. Finally she found it; a whole stack of the floppy disks she remembered as being so plentiful in Bastion's control room.

"Way to go," Logan said as he took them from her with a smile, and warmth spread through her at the praise, and at the quick squeeze he gave her shoulder. Suddenly his touch didn't bother her so much, although she tried to stay as far away from Mustang as she could, putting Logan between herself and him.

They burst out of the clinic, elated by their success. "Hey! We found these computer floppy discs—" Logan stopped in mid-sentence as he and Jubilee took in the sight of Scott, lying motionless on the ground in obvious pain, and Jean beside him with two human medics hovering close by. "What happened to Slim?"

Sam sighed. 'You missed the shoot-out, Logan! Bastion is history and S.H.I.E.L.D. was just through here mopping up the Sentinels—Cyclops got caught in the crossfire—" Sam looked hopelessly back at their fallen leader. "There's a bio-bomb in his chest."

Jean spoke, her eyes never leaving her husband. "We have to get him back to Salem Center. The medlab is his only chance, but…how…?"

Logan looked up…and by chance his eyes fell on the abandoned Zero Tolerance aircraft the X-Men had been planning on using to make their getaway. "Looks like we got an abandoned Z.T. transport jet over there—Storm, you're qualified to fly the Blackbird. You think you got the chops to get this crate airborne?"

Ororo smiled thinly, though it was a grim smile. "You have to ask, my friend?"

Scott levitated off the ground, wrapped in the magenta glow of Jean's telekinesis. "I'm generating a psi-cocoon to stabilize Scott for the trip!" Ororo boarded first, to prepare the plane for a vertical lift-off; Jean followed, cradling Scott and cushioning him from further harm, and Sam followed with Jubilee. Jubilee took a last glance behind her, at the clinic and the base, and saw Logan give Mustang the disks she'd found. She saw them exchange words, and she lagged a little behind until she saw Logan head for the plane, then she climbed in and found a seat, buckling herself in securely. _Hey, at least I get to ride in this thing awake and vertical_, she thought. _Beats ridin' in it drugged asleep and horizontal!_

She made herself as comfortable as she possibly could, sighing. Everyone seemed to be busy. Jean was holding Scott together despite the bomb in his chest threatening to tear him apart; Logan and Ororo were up front, piloting the plane; only Sam seemed to be restless, walking around with a pensive expression on his face that looked so much like Paige's that Jubilee was startled. Well, they are brother and sister…she remembered how Paige hated being interrupted, so she remained quiet, until they were just over Pennsylvania, and then her curiosity got the better of her. "What's wrong, Hayseed?" It was an affectionate nickname she used for Sam's little sister.

"Nothin', Jubilee. Jus' thinking, is all."

Jubilee had a hunch she knew what he was thinking about; he'd looked just as lost as she felt. But all she said was, "Yeah? Well, don't do too much of it. It'll get ya in trouble every time."

Logan looked back at them. "Strap yourselves in, we're gonna be home in a while. Jubes, we was thinkin' fore Slim got hit that we'd drop ya off in Massachusetts 'fore we went back to the mansion, but now we can't afford the extra time ta detour. You gonna be okay with spendin' a few extra days with us?" Or weeks. Or months, depending on how long it took to mop everything up.

"Suits me," Jubilee sighed. Off the hook. She wasn't really keen on going back to the Academy right away; just remembering how Bastion had swept her off the grounds had ruined any feeling of happiness and security she'd had. Now all she wanted was to be close to the people she cared about, the people she'd almost never seen again…the family she had betrayed.

Guilt pricked her like a needle, and she leaned back against the seat and closed her eyes, trying not to think about it. This whole mess had been her fault…how the hell was she going to find a way to apologize for this? Would they believe her? Would she ever be trusted again? Would they—especially Wolvie—ever, ever forgive her?

She was still mulling over this as exhaustion over took her and she slipped into a deep, dreamless sleep.

"We're here, Jubes—" Logan stopped short as he saw her, slumped over in the seat, definitely deeply asleep. He placed a finger against his lips and turned to Ororo, who was behind him. "She's sleepin'. 'Bout time for it, she has to've been exhausted. Put the plane on autopilot an' let her sleep. I'll come get her later." Ororo nodded, went to the cockpit, made the necessary adjustments, and the X-Men made their exit from the plane as Jubilee slept on, oblivious to anything but her body's urgent, overwhelming need for sleep.

End notes:

Thanks go to the creative teams on Wolverine #117 and #118, and the creative team on X-Men #350, from which material for this chapter was taken. And thanks also to my coauthor, who so kindly provided me with the issue I was missing! Also, the folks at UXNyou folks are a veritable Smithsonian of X-Men information, particularly Monolith and Peter Luzifer, and I appreciate the time and effort you've taken to answer all my annoying questions about a minor character like Jubilee. I hope you guys approve of the way I bridged some of the 'irreconcilable gaps' in Marvel continuity.

The next part of this book will be a lot less 'leaning on canon' and a lot more creative work. After X-Men 350, Jubilee drops off the radar for a while; the general consensus among the X-Men fans seems to be that Jubilee got dropped off at the Academy on the X-Men's way back to the mansion. Given Scott's state at the time, I really doubt they would have detoured out of the way to drop her off, so the next few chapters will be mostly my work. If you have any issues with the events as I've laid them out so far, feel free to email me at 


	13. The Mansion

Chapter 13: The Mansion

"Later, bub." Bobby and Hank were talking up ahead of him in the hall; Ororo was being uncharacteristically quiet, no doubt due to Marrow's presence. Logan didn't bother to find out what she was thinking; he had his own things to worry about.

Like Jubilee.

He strode out to the back lawn, where the transport they had taken to the mansion had set down on the basketball court. He tapped on the control panel that extended the loading ramp, and climbed quietly inside.

Jubilee was still asleep where he'd left her, slumped on her side across two of the hard, uncomfortable seats. Logan paused for a moment, watching her sleep. _Poor kid_, he mused. _Looks like she's been through hell_.

He started yanking open compartments, inspecting their contents. Two thick woolen blankets, military issue. Good. He draped one over her small body, wincing at the sight of the raw abrasions on her wrists as her sleeve rode up her arm, then left the other blanket folded by the door, to take to Jean for Scott. He then returned to his inspection of the cubbyholes. A spare flightsuit, sized small; also good. Except Jubilee had no underclothing. Hey, it was still something. He pulled the uniform out, left it sitting on a nearby seat as he turned to the next cubbyhole.

This one was a goldmine. A military-issue water canteen; foil packs of food for soldiers in the field, and a first aid kit. He wished he'd thought to look here earlier, when it could have done Scott some good.

He grabbed the canteen and the blanket, hurrying back to the mansion. Ororo was the first person he saw; he handed the blanket to her, told her to give it to Jean for Scott. Then he went to the kitchen, filled the canteen with water, and was heading back out to the plane when he heard the sound of tearing tape. Peering around a doorframe, he saw Ororo and Cecilia opening a dusty box of clothes obviously dug out of the attic, and he stepped into the room.

"Looks like Bastion missed this box in that attic closet," Cecilia said, digging into the box. "Whew. These things are old. Hey, Drake, give that back!" She made a wild grab for something Bobby held, and missed. Logan saw, as Bobby held it up, that the little slip of bright pink lace was feminine underclothing. And it was small. Small enough to fit Jubilee.

Bobby snickered. "I wonder who wore this? Jean?"

"None o' yer business, Ice Boy," Logan growled, snatching the clothing from Bobby's hand. A quick look past the younger man showed the rest of the box's contents were male clothing, so he left carrying just the underclothes. Bobby shrugged and they returned to their perusal of the box's contents.

She was still where he'd left her, but the blanket was slipping off her still form. Logan leaped forward to catch it before it slipped off Jubilee completely, and as he set the canteen and clothing down on the next seat he heard her whisper, "Please…please, I'm so sorry…" Her face was streaming with tears as she croaked, "Please forgive me…I couldn't help it…he hurt me…"

She was having a nightmare. Logan flinched at the anguish in her voice, reached down, and touched her shoulder gently. "Hey. Hey, Jubes, wake up."

"**_Don't hurt me_**!" Jubilee sat bolt upright, screaming hoarsely in pain and panic. "Please, for God's sake, don't hurt me, I'm just a—" she broke off as her wide, staring eyes took in Logan's figure next to her. She took a deep, shaky breath, scrubbed her arm across her eyes and tried to wipe away the tears she hoped he wouldn't see. "I'm sorry, Wolvie, are we home yet?" she struggled to a sitting position, then tried to rise to her feet. Her body, still exhausted, got halfway up before her shaking knees dropped her to the seat again.

Logan sat down in the seat next to her; not within her personal space but close enough for her to know she could cry on his shoulder if she needed to. "Yeah, we're home," he said gently. "Been home fer a while. Ya slept through most of the fuss; I figured it'd be better fer ya." He held out the canteen of water. "Drink. It's water."

She snatched the canteen from him and started to gulp it down thirstily. Water. Plain water. Not drugged orange juice, like she'd been getting at the Hulkbuster base. Plain water. She'd never tasted anything so good in her life. "Slowly, now," she heard Logan say. "Drink too much now, you'll upset yer stomach." She ignored him until he finally, firmly, took the canteen away from her. "That's enough for now." He shoved a handful of cloth into her fingers, then followed it up with heavier clothes. "Here. Ain't much, but it'll do."

She opened her hand. Little pink lace panties, and a matching bra; a size too big, but she wasn't going to complain. And in her other hand she held…a dark green military issue flight suit? "Wolvie?" her voice was working much better now, thanks to the water he'd given her. "Where did—what did— Is Scott okay?"

Logan's voice was soft. "He's fine. Change inta them clothes first, get outta that green thing. While yer eatin', we'll talk." He got up, crossing the main compartment of the plane, and stood in the doorway, looking out, carefully avoiding looking at her.

Jubilee almost ripped the seams of the plastic jumpsuit off in her haste to get out of it. After so long of having only this to wear…she kicked it aside in favor of the underclothing, then stopped. "Logan? Shouldn't I shower first?"

Logan gritted his teeth and forced his voice to stay gentle. "Nah. Mansion's practically empty, we ain't even got towels. Shower'll have to wait." _Not until after that doctor woman's had a chance to examine ya. I don't like that smell hangin' all over ya…_As Jubilee had removed the jumpsuit, he'd caught the unmistakable smell of male bodily fluids that had worked into the material of the jumpsuit. That, and the way she'd backed away from him, her moan of pain when she'd climbed on his back and straddled him…they were pieces to a puzzle that had finally come together. And he didn't like what he thought he was seeing. "Go ahead an' get dressed, now." After a moment he heard the rustle of fabric as she dressed in the unfamiliar underclothes and the flightsuit.

"Done," she said finally, and he turned around The flightsuit was two sizes too big for her, and the weight she'd lost didn't help none, but she looked semi-decent. Then he had to rush across the compartment to catch her as her knees gave out, and he eased her back into the seat she'd fallen asleep in. "Maybe ya better stay there till ya got enough strength ta move around," he said, withdrawing from her as soon as she was seated. After what she must have experienced at the hands of Bastion and his men, he didn't want to trigger a panic attack by his mere presence too close to her. Instead, he got up to rummage in the pile of items he'd taken from the plane's compartments, and came back with the first-aid kit and the emergency field rations. "Here. Eat." She tore into the package hungrily as he opened the first-aid kit and took stock of it's contents.

"Eww." He looked up, to see Jubilee staring at the foil pack in distaste. "What's this suff?"

"Soldiers' field rations. Sorry, Jubilee, it's all we got. Ya oughtta see the mansion," he jerked his thumb behind him at the wall of the plane and the mansion sleeping silently beyond. "Bastion stripped the buildin' o' everything. Ain't nothin' left but the walls, an' one box o' old clothes from the storage attic. We got nothin' back there."

Jubilee hunched her shoulders and went very, very silent and still, and Logan put the first aid kit aside. "What's wrong?"

She twisted her hands in her lap anxiously. He waited patiently. Whatever it was, it was bothering her so much that she'd have to tell him eventually. And she did. "It was my fault." He had to strain to hear her.

"What was your fault?" he frowned. "Jubes, none of this coulda possibly been your fault."

"Yes it was." Jubilee shrank into herself. "I failed. I tried, Wolvie, I really really tried, but it was too much, he hurt me, hurt me really bad, I couldn't…" She burst into tears. "Please, please, forgive me, Logan, oh God, please…"

He wrapped his arms around her as she sobbed. "Ain't nothin' in this world I can't fergive ya for, Jubes," he said. "And ain't no way this mess was yer fault either. How could it be?"

"Bastion," Jubilee sniffled, wiping her streaming eyes and nose on her sleeve. "Bastion had me in the base…he kept asking me where you were, where the X-Men's base was…I tried so hard not to tell him, Wolvie, I really really tried…I don't remember telling him anything…but there were times when I was so strung out on his drugs and…and the pain…I could have told him and I don't remember it and it's all my fault you guys were there and Scott got hurt…" She looked up at him with eyes so full of pain and pleading that he had to swallow the lump in his throat.

He dropped to a crouch in front of her as she sat on the chair, bringing his eyes to her level. And even then he had to tilt her chin up until she was looking straight at him. "Jubilee. Listen to me. Whatever happened, however he found out about the mansion, it wasn't your fault. Yer a kid; you couldn't'a resisted him for long. I wouldn't expect ya to. Bastion is ruthless, Jubes; you may have saved yer life by tellin' him what he wanted to know. He'd have killed you if you didn't. I don't blame ya, Jubes; an'; no one else will, either. We know what Bastion's capable of. An' yer still a kid too. Ain't nothin' ta fergive, Jubes, so don't blame yourself."

Jubilee flung her arms around him and started crying, as hard as he'd ever seen her cry, into his shoulder. Heart aching for her, he held her and let her cry herself into exhaustion, until she was limp and he was sure she couldn't possibly have any tears left. He carefully laid her back down across the seats and sat on the floor next to her, taking one wrist in his hand and pushing her sleeve up to examine the marks on her thin wrists. She didn't resist this time; probably too tired. He carefully applied some of the antibiotic cream on her skin around those raw chafe marks, and wrapped some soft white bandaging around the marks And as he did, he steered the topic of conversation down other channels; telling her about their homecoming; about Cecelia, about how she'd held his hand and used his claw to perform the surgery to remove the bio-bomb from Scott's chest. "Damn, Jubes," he commented as he started working on her other wrist. "I ain't never wanted ta see so much'a Slim before, an' I don't ever wanna do that again. An' it was hard on Jeannie, too; she looked damn near ta faintin' after it was all over. But we got the thing out, an' that doctor chased us all outta the room so Scott could get his rest. So I came here ta check up on you."

"But I thought …there was no furniture….in the mansion…" Jubilee yawned sleepily as he pushed up the hem of the flight suit pant and started salving and bandaging the chafe marks he knew would be on her ankles. And he was right; there were.

"There ain't," Logan said grimly. "Scott's sleepin' on a bed o' leaves back there in the mansion. I found a blanket in here an' gave it to Jeannie fer him, but I saved the other one for you." He finished with her ankles and dampened a bit of gauze with water from the canteen, dabbing at the dirty streaks on her face.

Jubilee started to push herself onto one elbow. "Scott can lie down on these seats if he needs it," she began, but Logan waved her back down.

"Ain't necessary. Scott won't fit on these seats. You're smaller, so ya can. Don't worry about it."

"Oh…okay…" Jubilee lay back down, her eyes drifting closed; she'd drunk all that water, and eaten, and now her body was demanding more sleep. And she wasn't inclined to argue; Wolvie was here, and she was safe, and he'd never let anybody hurt her…she half-roused as he slid a hand under her head and tucked a 'pillow' made of scrunched-up spare flight suits, and she mumbled some sort of thanks at him as he pulled the blanket over her as she slid back into sleep.

Logan looked back at her. Damn Bastion. More than anything else right now he wanted to go back there, tear the base apart until he found Bastion, and rip the man apart…but he was needed here. There were too many new kids, and not all of them were trustworthy. Marrow, for instance. And the way she was getting on Ororo's nerves… And Jean needed someone to be strong for her while she was trying to be strong for Scott. And Jubilee…

He headed into the mansion after closing the hatch and making sure no one could enter without waking Jubilee. He wanted to have a quick talk with Jean. Jubilee was still hiding a lot of her trauma, a lot of her painful experiences, and maybe it would be better for her to talk to a woman. He might have asked Ororo…except Marrow was grating on Ororo's nerves and making her so angry Jubilee would pick up on that anger and it might traumatize her even more. He didn't really want to bother Jean; she had to worry about Scott…but Logan was worried about Jubilee, and just asking Jean to talk to Jubilee might help Jean not worry so much about Scott. If only for a little while.

And just talking would help Jubilee.

End notes:

This chapter is set during the latter half of X-Men #70. On page 37, Logan leaves the room where Jean and Scott are, and he says 'later'. I took that as an opportunity to have him check on Jubes, still sleeping on the plane. Everything after that line is mine, not Marvel's, so don't blame them for any of this!

Hang on for the next chapter!


	14. Emotional Pain

Chapter 14: Emotional Pain

Jean hung in midair upside down, thinking.

_It's ironic…I've been to the ends of the universe and back…raced comets around the moon, circled the globe at the speed of thought…but I still can't manage to get any quality sleep the night before a long flight. If Scott knew I was suffering from a case of pre-trip insomnia, he'd pop open his stitches laughing. I'd probably laugh too…only this takes a lot of concentration. Telekinetic meditation…and a little housecleaning…of a psychometric sort. Throughout the school there are pools of psychic detritus…like the lingering stench of tar and nicotine in the couch after a smoker's been over. Bastion, for example, and his Zero Tolerance hounds exchanged all of our worldly possessions for a healthy dose of psionic tarnish. His hatred remains even though he's long gone._ _Some imagination, and a lot of telepathic know-how, and I can pretty much obliterate his stain from the grounds. Feels good…but that was the easy one. As deadly as Bastion was, he hasn't left half as deep a psychic scar on our little family as Remy has. Friend. X-Man. Judas. The sense of betrayal left in the wake of Gambit's trial has poisoned everyone's thoughts…especially Rogue's. I'm worried about the way she's avoiding her feelings…if only she would let someone in. unfortunately, X-women tend to have a stubborn streak…or so I hear. Bishop. Gambit, Professor X, gone…there's so much pain trapped within these walls, these hearts. As if everything the Xavier Institute stands for…the reason we're all here…has gone out of whack…maybe we shouldn't leave…_and just then Scott turned over in his sleep, pulled a stitch under the bandaging, and cried out involuntarily. Jean, startled out of her telekinetic meditation, fell to the floor with an ungraceful, completely un-Phoenix-like _whump._ Blinking in startlement and rubbing her eyes, she climbed to her feet, already turning toward the figure in the bed as she did. "That was graceful," she muttered to herself. Then, louder, she said, "Honey? Are you all right? I felt your pain through our psychic rapport, and—" she broke off as Scott turned over on his back and let out a hearty snore. _And bruised my behind while you rolled over like nothing happened…thanks._ She walked over to the bed, grabbed the blanket Logan had gotten for Scott from the plane, and pulled that up over Scott's sleeping form. _The man can nap through anything. The sleep of a child. A confident sleep, like everything's going to be okay, and he knows it. Lucky him. Meanwhile, I'm wide awake, stuck on the same question that's been gnawing on me since dawn…are the X-Men going to hold it all together? Can we survive?_

She paused for a moment, looking down at Scott sleeping, then leaned over and gave him a quick kiss. _Sleep well, honey. Rest. Recover. I'm going to see about another of our number, one who's been hurt as badly as you have, just in a different way…_

As she closed the door and strolled down the hallway she was forcibly reminded again of just how large the mansion was. With the furnishings gone and the walls bare, she was truly starting to take in just how big the place was!

In the few days since they'd been home, they'd managed to acquire a few things; emergencies and necessities, mostly. Food, for one; phone service was another. She'd called Emma at the Massachusetts Academy, managed to keep the anger and sarcasm out of her voice as she explained that Jubilee was currently at the mansion, it was in less-than livable state, and asked how Emma wanted Jubilee brought back. Emma had responded with almost-human concern, had told Jean that she would send a Frost Enterprises car to the mansion that afternoon to pick Jubilee up and take her to the airfield, where a small charter plane would take her the rest of the way to Massachusetts. Emma had also placed one of her expense accounts at the X-Men's disposal, which cleared the way for them to get more things they needed. Beds were the next item on the list; one for Jean and Scott, one for each of the mansion's current residents, and one for Jubilee, who had been drifting in and out of an exhausted sleep on the plane's seats for the last few days. Logan had been waking her periodically to give her food and water and to try to talk, but after her 'admission' that the whole mess was her fault, she'd been suppressing her feelings about her entire ordeal with an iron will. And that worried Logan as much as Rogue's suppression of her feelings about Remy was worrying Jean.

"Can ya talk ta her, Jean?" he'd asked her just the other day when she'd run into him coming back into the mansion from checking on Jubilee on the plane. "This ain't healthy fer her. I tried gettin' her taopen upan' she ain't. She's never felt like she couldn't tell me anythin' 'fore now. She's exhausted, she's starved and battered—an' I don't gotta tell ya how that disturbs me, Jean. I've never seen her in this bad a condition before. All she's doing is sleeping…and I've had to wake her a few times when her nightmares got too bad. I can't stand seein' Jubes in this much pain, Jean. It'll help if she talks about it, but she don't wannadiscuss it withme. I understand you got Scott on yer mind, an' all these new kids ain't helpin' much—"

"Sure, I'll talk to her, Logan," Jean had reassured him. "I'm worried about her too. When Ororo and I first greeted her after you brought her out of the desert, her physical condition worried both of us. Ororo's kind of wrapped up in her current problems with Marrow, but Jubilee might be more willing to talk to me anyway."

They had gotten a bed for her even though they knew she would be leaving soon. Logan had insisted that she couldn't sleep on the plane till she left; and also, after Jubilee left, someone would surely be coming to take that bed. She was sleeping in a room down the hall right now, in a room that Jean had psychically shielded because her nightmares disturbed the other residents. Out in the plane she'd been far enough away that her nightmares hadn't bothered anyone (Jean had felt a distant psychic disturbance several times, but she hadn't had time to check up on her.)

She stopped in front of Jubilee's door and tapped on it lightly. Getting no answer, she tapped once more, a little more firmly, and then walked in.

The amount of psychic pain in the room was incredible. Jubilee lay on the new bed, tangled in the sheets, her body rigid, every muscle taut and straining. Her face was creased in an expression of anguish, and her teeth were clenched so tight Jean was sure Jubilee would break them. As the redhead watched, Jubilee's head fell back on her neck, so far Jean thought she might snap her spine, and a panting hiss of agony escaped those gritted teeth. "No more," Jubilee pleaded, her whisper barely audible in the dark room. "Please, no more. I can't take any more, stop it…"

Jean dropped her psychic shield. Not much, because she could sense the turmoil going on in the room just beyond them, but enough so she could get an idea what Jubilee was reliving that would cause her this much pain. Images filtered into her mind; Jubilee, strapped to what looked like a prison's electric chair, screaming as current ripped through her body and made her spasm. Jean yanked her shields down quickly, tears filling her eyes. She hadn't wanted to see that, hadn't expected to see that, and now that she had, she knew the kind of pain she'd have to deal with. She approached the bed, pulled the sheet away from the tormented, sweating figure, and leaned over Jubilee, whispering gently, "Jubilee? Jubilee, wake up. You're safe. You're home, nothing's going to hurt you now. Wake up, sweetheart."

"No," Jubilee curled up in a tight ball, crying hard now. "No, please, for God's sake, please, stop hurting me…I can't tell you, please…no more electricity…"

"Jubilee, sweetie, please. Wake up. You're all right, you're safe…" Jean touched Jubilee's shoulder gently.

Jubilee screamed out in pain, twisting away from Jean. "Ow, no, please! Please, I'm begging you, please, stop! Don't hurt me anymore, please don't hurt me anymore…"

Jean bit her lip. If every touch got sucked into Jubilee's dreamscape, how could she…she dropped her shields tentatively, wincing as Jubilee's raw emotional pain slammed into her. Jean had to force herself to block out the images of Jubilee in pain, starved, beaten, being brutally violated, and touched the tiny spark of consciousness in the middle of all that turmoil. **Jubilee! Jubilee, sweetheart, wake up! You're safe. We're here, at the mansion, nothing's going to hurt you!**

_Help me, Jean!_ Jubilee's mindvoice was frantic. _Jean, please! Help me! I want to go home!_

Jean extended a psychic 'hand' to Jubilee. **Jubilee, here. I'm right here. Take my hand. I'll help you.**

Jubilee's tear-streaked face rose to Jean's, and Jean saw the misery, pain, and anguish in her psychic eyes. She reached a hand up toward Jean, then snatched her hand back. _No! No, you're just another illusion Bastion created, you're not real, you're trying to trick me, go away! _

Jean couldn't stand hearing Jubilee cry like that in denial and pain. She grabbed Jubilee in a tight psychic hug. **Jubilee, I'm here! It's me, it's Jean! I'm here, you're home, you're safe!** She quickly swam up through the layers of Jubilee's mind, still hanging onto Jubilee's psychic form…

…and they both came back to full consciousness at the same time,. Jubilee's thrashing body held tightly in Jean's arms. The blanket was wound around both of them. Jean felt Jubilee's body, muscles straining, rigid under the thin sheet…and then her eyes fluttered open, and she looked up at Jean. "Jean?" the name was dragged up from the depths of Jubilee's consciousness. "Are we…really…home?"

Jean stroked the sweat-soaked hair back from Jubilee's forehead. "Yes, Jubilee, you're safe. We're all home, we're all okay."

"No," Jubilee moaned, and for a moment Jean worried that Jubilee was drifting into the nightmarish memories again, but the girl's small body slumped in her arms, limply, and silent tears flowed down her cheeks. "No, we're not all okay. Scott got hurt, hurt because of me. Because I was weak, and I hate myself so much for failing!"

Jean blinked. What was… "Jubilee," she said gently, refusing to allow the young girl to fling herself out of the bed and away from her, "Scott got hurt because a Sentinel shot him with nanotechnology that planted a biogenetic bomb in his chest. It's not your fault. It couldn't possibly be."

"You don't understand!" Jubilee drew away from Jean, hugged her knees to her chest, and spoke slowly, miserably. "It was my fault because I told Bastion where the mansion was. Me. I wasn't strong enough. I wasn't smart enough. I wasn't brave enough, or on my guard enough. And when Scott finds out, he's gonna hate me, and he's gonna kick me out of the X-Men. And I don't know where I'll go. Because of my big fat mouth, I hurt my family…I betrayed you guys, and now you're gonna hate me!" And she burst into tears.

Jean took Jubilee's shoulders, and telekinetically lifted the girl's chin until her watery blue eyes met Jean's green ones. "Jubilee," Jean said, projecting an aura of calm and assurance, "How long were you at the Hulkbuster base?"

"I dunno," Jubilee shrugged miserably. "A long time. They didn't let me see any clocks or stuff, so I couldn't keep track of time."

Jean's voice was soft. "And Bastion asked you where the mansion was. And you refused to tell him, and he hurt you."

Tears overflowed Jubilee's eyes again. "He hit me," she said softly. "And when I still wouldn't tell him, he…let the guards do stuff…and then he tried to drug me into telling. Then he let the guards do stuff to me while I was drugged. I must have said something while I was drugged, but I don't remember what I said. But suddenly he stopped asking me, stopped everything…and I was so afraid I'd said something…and then he dragged me into the control room, and he showed me these holograms of you and Sam and Scott and 'Ro and Wolvie, and Wolvie looked really bad, and then I knew it was real because he was hanging onto you…they said he'd taken the impact of a plane crash, shielded you…and then they took him to the incinerators, and I thought I'd never see him again…" She sniffed. "Then you came bustin' up outta the lower levels, and Bastion sent all those Sentinels at you and closed the doors…I broke free, just for a minute, and I managed to hit the button that opened that door for you guys. Bastion was furious. He beat me, and then he said he was going to break me, and told the guards to take me back to my cell and leave me there without food and water and light…" She took a shuddering breath. "Bastion's assistant Daria helped me get out. She sacrificed herself so I could escape. I tried to find you guys…and a Sentinel caught me…and then Wolvie came roarin' up outta nowhere, and he ripped that Sentinel apart and saved me…I'd never been so glad to see anyone in my life. And then we got back, and I thought everything was gonna be okay…and Scott got that bomb thingie in his chest, and everyone was all worried…and I was terrified, because if he died it would be my fault…my fault for telling Bastion where you were to begin with."

She started to cry again, but Jean shook her, gently but firmly. "Jubilee. Bastion didn't capture us from here. We were on a plane coming back from Hong Kong, where the Kingpin had Sam. He had something called the Elixir Of Life we thought might be a cure for the Legacy Virus, and we went to get that. Ororo ended up destroying it so it wouldn't become something everyone went to war over, because that's what it was shaping up to be. And we were on our way back when we were stoppedover Coloradoand taken into custody by Operation: Zero Tolerance. Jubilee, we had the mansion entered into the plane's navigation computer as our destination. Bastion could just as easily have gotten the location from the computer; we weren't exactly discreet. Do you remember telling Bastion where the mansion was?"

Jubilee, wide-eyed, shook her head.

"Then he could easily have gotten it from another source other than you. And even if he did get it from you, Jubilee, there's no way we'd blame you. You were under a lot of stress; what you went through…" Jean swallowed hard as a memory popped into Jubilee's mind; Jubilee herself, strapped spreadeagle to a cold steel table, and there was a man straddling the table, doing...Jubilee must have realized she was unintentionally projecting, because she clamped shields down around her mind. "…What you went through was more than any child your age should have to deal with. You couldn't have been expected to hold out even as long as you did; I'm not sure even I could have. You were very brave, Jubilee, and I'm proud of you. So is Logan. No one here blames you for anything, Jubilee. Please don't blame yourself." As if those memories of what they had done to her weren't torture enough…

Jubilee collapsed against Jean, sobbing in relief. "I was so worried you'd blame me for what happened! Logan said you wouldn't but I didn't know for sure and I was so scared and tired and they did such horrible…things…to me…I can't even bear Logan for long periods of time, Jean, and it's worse when it's anyone else! Bobby came to try and say hello, and I could barely say two words to him. And Hank came, and he wanted to examine me, and I couldn't even speak to tell him no! Logan finally brought that doctor, Cecelia, and she checked me over and told me to rest and get plenty to eat, and I'd soon be fine." Jubilee's voice dropped. "I didn't tell her about…about the guards. I don't want anybody touching me."

Jean sighed and held Jubilee close again. "No one will touch you if you don't want them to," she said soothingly. "Not here. Definitely not here. But Jubilee, I do think it would be a good idea for you to get checked over by one of the doctors before you go back to the Academy—"

"I'm going back?" Jubilee frowned. Jean felt a surge of nervousness from her.

Jean nodded as gently as she could. "Emma said she would send a car from Frost Enterprises to come and pick you up this afternoon. You'll be taken to an airfield where a charter plane will take you to the academy."

"But…I want to stay here with you…and Logan…" Jubilee bit her lip.

Jean sighed. "Jubilee, we'd like to have you stay, but…Scott and I are leaving for Alaska for a…vacation, if you want to call it that…and Logan and Ororo are going to have their hands full with all the new people around here. Added to that, the mansion is hardly in a livable condition, and we all really think that maybe it would be better for you to go back to the Academy."

_They don't want me. They really are mad at me and they just don't want to tell me_. Jubilee didn't let her thoughts show on her face as she said quietly, "All right. If you think it's best."

Jean nodded and smiled. "I do think its best," she said. "I really do. Jubilee…do you want me to send Cecelia back here to check you over thoroughly?"

"Do I have to?" Jubilee asked plaintively. "I'm not…they gave me an implant, Jean...they said they didn't want any more of our kind around, and they made sure…" She showed Jean the well-defined bumps of implants under the skin of her thigh.

Jean flinched. She knew that somewhere out there were girls younger than Jubilee getting contraceptive implants, but there were complications from a young girl getting the implants, and she didn't want to see Jubilee suffering from those complications. "Cecelia can remove them for you, and replace them with pills if you're not sure it's been long enough."

"Will it hurt?" Jubilee looked fearful at the thought.

"No. You'll be fine."

Jubilee looked about to argue…then she gave a small sigh of defeat and shrugged. "Whatever you think best." She just didn't want to argue anymore. She didn't want to give them more reason to hate her; they were already mad at her for betraying them.

Jean gave her a gentle pat on her shoulder. "I'll send Cecelia in here. Just relax, Jubilee. She's a doctor. She won't hurt you." Jubilee sank back down in her bed, pulling the sheet over her, as Jean left the room. _Sure she won't hurt me. She doesn't like us, doesn't want to be here. At least she doesn't wear a white coat like the doctors at Bastion's labs. _She suppressed a shudder, and bravely called 'come in' when she heard a knock on her door. Cecelia came in. "How are you feeling?' she asked briskly but kindly, pulling on a pair of exam gloves.

Jubilee stayed still for the examination, squeezing her eyes shut and giving the doctor answers to the questions she asked in a flat monotone. She tried desperately to think of something else; anything else but the feel of a gloved hand sliding up her bare thigh, entering her where she had been hurt so cruelly… Logan's face swam into her mind; just thinking his name gave her a feeling of warmth, of a solid strength she could draw on. She kept his face in her mind, whispering his name over and over in her mind, like a mantra, until the exam was over. She barely felt the prick of a needle as the implants were withdrawn from under her skin, much less painfully than they had gone in, and took the pills Cecelia gave her, one each morning, for a month. "Just to be sure." Jubilee nodded her thanks, and Cecelia left.

Jean was waiting outside the door for Cecelia. "How is she?" she asked the doctor.

Cecelia sighed. "She's been badly traumatized, not only physically but also emotionally. But she seems strong, and I think she'll recover fully. With time, and rest. And understanding." She strode off down the hall. Jean looked back at Jubilee's door, sent a psychic tendril into the room to check if Jubilee were sleeping, ascertained she was, and headed off to find Logan.

End Notes:

The beginning of this chapter, with Jean hanging upside down (in midair!) is from X-Men #71. Everything else, from where Jean tucked Scott in to the end, is all my creation. Many thanks to all you readers who have made it this far; hang on, there's a way to go. It ain't over yet!

Stay tuned for the next chapter!


	15. Tensions

Chapter 15: Tensions

The light coming from between the gaping boards of the barn walls was enough for Ororo to see by as she went to her knees and started searching the barn floor for what she knew was there. Beside her, she heard the click of Logan's lighter as he lit up a cigar, then took a deep sniff as he returned the lighter to his pocket. "Hmm," he mused, mostly to himself.

Ororo's sensitive fingers found the tiny, almost unnoticeable seam in the floor of the barn. Slipping her fingers into a crack, she began to pry the cement block up from its home, grunting a little with the effort. "What is it, Logan? Has the sky decided to fall while I was not paying attention?"

Logan grunted. "Nah. Strange scents, unfamiliar noises, Tell ya, 'Ro, I don't like these newcomers one bit. They stink of trouble."

Her fingers finally got a grip on the underside of the block. "It is a wonder you can smell anything aside from the fetor of that cigar."

Logan snorted humorlessly. "Ah, says you."

Ororo said severely, "Logan, we must give our visitors the benefit of the doubt and trust the instincts of our fellows while they gather their bearings. Is that not what the X-Men is all about?"

Logan grinned. "Sure. That's why yer so jazzed 'bout bone girl shackin' up in the basement, right? It musta just slipped your mind to roll out the red carpet for her." He watched Ororo's eyes go white with anger, but he couldn't resist needling her a little more. "Tough t' turn the other cheek when it's yer cheek doin' the turnin', huh?"

Ororo got all stiff and formal, like she always did when she got angry. "You are a fresh little man, Logan. Leave me. I do not need your help." _There she goes again, slippin' inta that 'goddess' role like she used ta. At least she ain't supressin' her feelin's. Not like someone else I know_. "Course ya don't but I'm a pip t'have around." He slid his claws out then plunged them into the dirt underneath. "An I won't mess up my manicure…" He suddenly sensed someone else's presence; he also knew who it had to be. "Ain't that right, Jeannie?" He looked up. Sure enough…

In the doorway Jean gave Logan a sidelong exasperated look. "Now wait a second. I know for a fact that I'm downwind from you two, so your hyper-senses couldn't have sniffed me out, and I floated across the ground so there was no noise. How did you know I was here, Logan?"

Logan shrugged. "Some things a man just knows, Red."

_Logan's tense. I can feel him practically bursting at the seams. He doesn't want me to leave, though he'd die before he'd admit it._ Jean looked searchingly at him for a moment, then filed that thought away as she stepped into the barn. To cover the suddenly awkward silence, Logan said gruffly, "You need a ride to the airport?"

Jean shrugged noncommittally. "No, thanks. We've got it covered."

"Sure." Logan said flatly.

Jean went over and looked curiously at the hole in the floor. "What are you two doing?"

"We are trying to determine what we have left in the way of assets—" Ororo began.

Logan interrupted. "Aside from 'Ro's celebrated sense o' humor, o' course."

Ororo blew out her breath in an exasperated whuff. "You are standing dangerously close to my last nerve, Logan." She pried the last obstacle to her objective out of the floor, and Jean and Logan both looked in.

'Your tiara?" That was the first thing Jean saw. Then the slim little metal tools that she didn't recognize at first. "What is all…" and then something else that drove all other thoughts clean out of her head. "Oh my. Are those real?"

Ororo's voice was tinged with not a little satisfaction as she said, "As real…and as rare…as the day I liberated them from their former owner."

_Lock picks. Hidden treasure. A sobering reminder that as well as we think we may know our teammate, she's still a woman who plays it close to the vest. _Jean tried not to let any of her feelings show on her face as she watched Ororo slip the tiara back on over her silver locks, but the statuesque African woman must have seen something. "Old habits die hard, Jean. No matter how much one trusts her adopted family. The adept thief divides her equipment and her lucre between multiple locations for extreme times such as these." She knelt to scoop the coins from their hiding place.

"Preciate your generosity, 'Ro," Logan said gruffly, feeling a little bad about how he'd needled her earlier, "but as soon as we hock that coin I'd shove the green right back under your mattress. With all the refugees floatin' around the mansion, you don't know who you can trust."

Jean looked at Logan in concern. "Are you really that concerned about our guests, Logan?"

Logan looked peculiar for just a moment, then said rather loudly, "I ain't worried for myself, Jeannie. 'Cause at the end of the day they ain't got nuthin' I can't handle…ain't that right, gang?" He addressed someone standing behind her, and Jean whirled. Cecelia, Maggott, and Sam stood behind the three.

"Oh…" Jean breathed, too low for anyone but Logan to hear.

Sam broke the awkward silence. "Uh, sorry to interrupt, y'all. We were just headin' inta town…wanted to see if anyone wanted to join us. Anyone? Please?" he added in a hopeful tone of voice, like a kid hoping to entice a grownup into a game that otherwise might not be allowed.

"Ag, you folks really know how to make an oke feel wanted…" Maggott looked at the three X-Men, frowning a little.

Sam looked slightly sheepish. "Scott thought givin' these guys a little tour of Salem Center would be a bondin' exercise." Then, a little lower, "Guess who got volunteered t'head the glee club…"

Hands on her hips, Ororo said quietly, "Has everyone been briefed on the protocols regarding excursions into town, Samuel?"

Maggott piped up. "Aye, Captain, Ma'am, Sir! We're all hip to proper X-Men away team etiquette! Struesbob!"

Logan ground out through gritted teeth, "That include not givin' lip t'yer superiors, pal?" He didn't like the tone this smart-ass was taking with Ororo…and he _really_ didn't like the way said smart-ass was eyeing Ororo up.

"Ag. No, sir, must have missed that when distracted by the robust aroma of that Ashton the gentleman is puffing, sir!"

Logan growled, baring his teeth just a little. "Heh. Cute. Kid's a real charmer, Sam. Better watch out or ya might start t'like him."

Cecelia spoke for the first time, obviously a little uncomfortable with the tension in the barn. "Look, all I want is a cup of coffee. A real cup. Not that sludge Drake made this morning. If town is where the java is, then I'm there ten minutes ago. I'll read the protocols when I get back."

Jean had it with this tension. "Hold on, Cecelia. No need for the attitude. We just need everyone to be careful—"

A new voice, sounding distinctly like bone grating against bone, spoke. "She's right, healer—" There was a swishing sound, and Marrow dropped from the barn ceiling to the floor. Jean's lips tightened. _She sucks the air out of the barn faster than I can process whose speaking. She regards us with the same eyes a cat stalks a canary with, scowling down her snout at playthings and her prey. If Scott would just look into those eyes, he'd cancel our tickets in a heartbeat._

Marrow was still speaking. "We're nasty, dangerous mutants—might get it in our heads to put the scaries into the good taxpayers of Westchester County." She let go of the rope. "You forgot to invite me on your little field trip, Sammy. I'm hurt." Her voice dripped sarcasm.

Sam protested. "No, I didn't forget you---uh, what I mean is---we don't have the holographic projectors, and—"

Orro placed a hand on Sam's shoulder as she stepped forward. "You are not free to roam outside the grounds, Marrow. Period. That is a privilege you will have to earn."

Marrow sneered. "I see, Bright One. Keep the uglies hidden in the tunnels where they won't offend. Let the pretty ones roam. What if I decide it's my right to go where I choose? What're you going to do then? Kill me?"

Jean sent a telepathic tendril into Ororo's mind. **She's trying to bait you in front of the others, Ororo. Don't play her games. Don't give in to anger.**

_Thank you for the telepathic coaching, Jean, but I am quite capable of dealing with this…child._ Aloud, she said, "Pay close attention, miscreant. I will only say this once. You will not—"

Maggott interrupted. "Ag, hey. Marrow, right? I didn't really want to spend thisarvie with Gomer Pyle, anyhows. What do you say I hang back and we compare sob stories?"

Marrow responded with her usual abrasiveness. "Pity. How noble of you." She lashed out with a hand, striking him across the face. He grunted. "Save it for the Wind Rider, slug. She's the one who's going to need it." And with that the hostile woman walked off.

Maggott looked after her. "You coulda just said no, thank you," he muttered.

Logan looked at Ororo quickly. She was rigid with anger, her eyes whited out. He said tentatively, "'Ro? She ruffle yer feathers, darlin'?"

As if in answer, there was a rumble of thunder and then the distinctive sound of lightning striking the roof of the barn. Then Ororo stalked off. Shortly thereafter, Sam, Cecelia, and Maggott, somewhat subdued, left the barn, leaving Jean and Logan alone. Logan took a last drag on his cigar. "One big happy family. Think they got any extra seats on that plane o' yers, Red?"

Jean sighed. "I'm not sure we should leave anymore either, Logan. But Scott and I need some time off…and he's not going to get any better with all the tension and worry around here."

Logan turned to face her. "Then ya do what ya gotta do, Jeannie. 'Ro an' I can handle things here. She ain't quite the leader Scott is, but we can handle things till ya get back." He looked at the mansion as they started walking toward it through a small stand of trees. "Y'know, I guess what bugs me is that Jubes is up there, sleepin' through all this now, but when she finally feels well enuff ta come an' join us, she's gonna be confused as hell with all these new people around."

Jean shook her head briskly. "That's what I was coming to tell you. Emma said she was sending a car for Jubilee this afternoon and a charter plane will take her the rest of the way to Massachusetts. You won't have to worry about her after she leaves."

Logan stopped walking. "Didja get a chance ta talk to her?"

Jean nodded slowly. "I talked Jubilee into letting Cecelia check her over before we both went down to the kitchen for breakfast. She says physically Jubilee will be all right; with time, and rest, she'll be fine. She didn't suffer any lasting damage...at least, not that we can tell without the medical equipment we had before." She sighed. "What I wouldn't give for all of our stuff back…"

"So Jubilee's okay physically. What about mentally?" Logan asked.

Jean hesitated, wondering how much she should tell Logan; wondering how much he'd guessed, and where she should draw the line before she betrayed Jubilee's confidence. "She'll be okay," she said finally.

Logan sensed the hesitation. "What happened?" his voice was soft.

"I walked into her room in the middle of a nightmare. I tried to wake her, but she was so lost in the dream…I touched her shoulder and she acted as though I'd hit her." Jean stared at the tree, looking but not really seeing it. "She's…she's been tortured, Logan. The images I saw in her mind—they were terrible. Horrible. Obscene. Bastion called us monsters. What should we call him, who could do such things…to a child?" her voice broke, and she buried her face in her hands for a moment.

Logan stepped close enough to wrap his arms around her. "Easy, Jeannie. It's okay. Jubes made it outta there, she's with us now, an' even Sean and Emma ain't gonna be so damn stupid as to let someone kidnap her again."

For just a moment Jean allowed herself to remain in Logan's arms. He was so different from Scott… She loved Scott, but she loved Logan too. That love had diminished over the years from the romantic flame she'd once had to the love of a dear, true friend, but there were times like this when she thought about the 'road not traveled'…with difficulty she pulled herself together and stepped out of his arms, leaving him leaning against the tree. "She wanted to stay here, but I told her it would be better to go back to school. With all the stuff that's been happening around here, all the new faces, it's better for her emotionally to go back to school, be with her friends and people her own age. Maybe she'll feel more comfortable talking to a friend her own age than a grownup. Even you." She saw the hurt flash behind Logan's eyes. "Logan, for all her love and trust for you, you're still male. It's going to take her a while to work through the conflicting feelings she's bound to have after her—after what happened."

Logan sighed. "It's just hard, Jean. After what happened...it's hard not ta wanna hang onta her an' never let her go. She was in there for a long time, Jean. An' I never knew. I feel like I've let her down. I promised ta always watch over her an' protect her an' I failed."

"If it's any consolation, Logan, she feels like she failed too," Jean said. "Bastion asked her for the location of the mansion. She refused. He tried to break her by feeding her illusions of us; then when that failed, he tried drugging her. Then he mixed the drugs with physical pain and r—" Jean stopped short.

Logan's lips thinned out in a straight line. "Rape. That's what you were going to say, Jean. Isn't it?"

Jean's expression was all the answer he needed. Logan gritted his teeth, tried to keep the anger in check, but the rage was too strong. He whirled, his claws popping out, and drove his claws up to his knuckles in the trunk of the tree. It felt good; he imagined that it was Bastion, and started to pound his fists into the tree, feeling his knuckles bruise, the skin splitting and healing and splitting again. His anguish was obvious.

Jean winced at the marks Logan was leaving on the tree, and the blood on his knuckles. "Logan, please, it's going to be—"

"Don't, Jean!" Logan was really angry, but it wasn't the sort of anger that provoked his berserker rage. It was a hopeless anger, borne of guilt and anguish that he hadn't been able to help Jubilee, hadn't been there when she needed him, as she had been there so often for him. "Don't try ta tell me not ta get mad. Don't tell me it's all gonna be okay. 'Cause it ain't. It can't. Jubilee's lost somethin' she shouldn't'a lost, cause I wasn't there ta protect her like I promised!" He drove his claws into the tree one last time, then pulled out and sank to the ground at the foot of the tree. The tree wasn't Bastion. The tree hadn't hurt Jubilee. He shouldn't hurt the tree. Ororo would get upset at the wanton destruction of an inoffensive piece of nature. "I wasn't there. I promised her I'd take care o' her when we started hangin' out all that while ago an' I wasn't there. I failed her." He raked a hand through his hair. "Why'd it have to be her, Jeannie? Why? Why couldn't it have been anybody else? Anybody else! Not my happy little, gutsy little Jubilee—"

Jean knelt next to him. "I don't know, Logan. God only knows. But it happened, and seeing you this angry isn't going to do Jubilee any good. Please." She brushed her hand gently over his and gave him a brief hug, then, sensing he would rather be alone, she rose to her feet. "I have to check on Scott. Remember, Logan, nothing we could have done would have altered anything that happened. Don't beat yourself up over it." And she was gone.

Logan slumped at the base of the tree, feeling guilt settle over him like a lead blanket. No matter what Jean said, it was his fault. His fault for not being there for her. His fault for not protecting her like he'd promised her. And because of his inattention, she had suffered something he couldn't even imagine. Sighing, he tipped his head back, letting it rest against the tree. "Why, God?" he asked the silent sky above him. "Why her? Why'd it have to be her?"

No answer was forthcoming. Well, it wasn't like he'd actually expected one. He was probably the last person God wanted to talk to. Climbing to his feet, he trudged off in the direction of the mansion.

End notes:

Material for this chapter came from X-Men #71. Only the parts leading up to Logan's conversation with Jubilee are Marvel's: the rest are mine. All blame should be sent this way, not theirs!

The next few chapters are going to have pretty much nothing to do with any comic issue; it's going to be pure fiction in my part. If you're still out there reading this, hang in there, it's almost done!

Stay tuned!


	16. Return To The Academy

Chapter 16: Return to the Academy

"I'd really like to stay here." Jubilee's voice was soft.

Logan sighed as she took another slow, reluctant step down the stairs toward the front door, where the Frost Enterprises car was waiting. "I'd like ya ta stay too, darlin'," he said gruffly, wincing inside as she took another step down. The stairs were hard, mostly because she was still aching. Her muscles were still protesting their strain of the last month. He wished he could just pick her up and carry her downstairs, but Jubilee was still flinching a little from his touch, and he didn't want to set off a panic attack. And he could feel some of the others watching him. If Cyke was going to leave him in charge here, he couldn't seem weak. "But the mansion ain't livable right now, an' we ain't got he facilities ta care fer ya. An' with Jean an' Scott getting' ready t'go too, we ain't gonna have any telepaths around ta help ya deal with those nightmares. An' besides, ya gotta be missin' yer friends back at the Academy by now."

"Yeah, I do." Jubilee brightened a little. "Can't wait to see Hayseed again. And I even miss Little Miss-Perfect-Monet." She smiled suddenly, a smile all the more heart-wrenching because it lacked all the innocent happiness that had been in it formerly. Logan forced himself to smile back. Jubilee had grown up too fast, too soon, the last month. The sooner she was back up at the Academy, the better, so she could reclaim what was left of her childhood.

Jean strolled down the hall, and paused at the foot of the stairs, watching Logan hover protectively over Jubilee as the child made her slow way down the steps. Gently, she reached out telekinetically and grasped Jubilee, bringing the girl down the rest of the steps even as her telepathy picked up the twinges of discomfort from Jubilee's body. It was going to take a long time before the ache in Jubilee's leg muscles went away; she only hoped Emma would be patient with Jubilee's current disability. "Ready to go?" she asked Jubilee gently.

Jubilee started to nod, then shook her head reluctantly. There was no use lying to a telepath. "I don't want to go. I wanna stay here with Wolvie." She sounded like a drowning child clinging to a life preserver.

"It's better for you, Jubilee," Jean said. "With all the new people around here, we don't really know who to trust, and Logan and Ororo are going to be busy trying to get this place livable again." She stopped speaking as two of those 'new people' came out of the hallway leading to the kitchen.

Cecelia spoke first, kindly. "Are you all packed? Do you have the pills I gave you?" Jean felt the surge of warmth from her, and was surprised.

"I'm packed. Not that there was much anyway." Her toothbrush and toothpaste. One change of clothes, scrounged from the box of old clothing they'd found in the attic. And the pills Cecelia had given her to be takenevery day. Jubilee had missed it a few times, but that could hardly hurt.

"Good." Cecelia's tone softened. "You'll be okay. Just take it easy for a little while, 'cause you're going to be sore for a long time. Muscle fatigue isn't that easy to get rid of." And to Jean's surprise, she gave Jubilee a quick hug.

A smile tugged at the corners of Logan's mouth too, which vanished as the other 'new person' spoke. "Ag, ain't had much of a chance t'talk, but hey, have a good trip anyway." Maggott reached out a huge hand, engulfing Jubilee's small one in his big one, and shook it. Jubilee responded with a shy smile, which vanished as the driver of the car waiting for her just outside the big front doors beeped the horn impatiently. Maggott and Cecelia continued going…wherever they were going, and Logan and Jean walked Jubilee out to the front steps. Jean gave her a quick kiss, and Logan hugged Jubilee one last time, then Jubilee lowered herself painfully into the back seat of the car. Jean handed her the overnight bag, and the driver started down the drive.

Logan growled suddenly, and Jean put a hand on his arm. She'd caught that too. **Logan, don't.** **She doesn't know Jubilee.**

Marrow had been watching Jubilee leave from the basement windows just above the ground. From that window she'd seen Logan hug Jubilee and put her in the car, and she had thought (and said at the same time), "Stupid spoiled little rich kid been coddled all this week—" With his sensitive hearing, Logan had heard that. And it made him furious. Jean was angry too; he could see her cheeks flush almost the same color as her hair. Jubilee wasn't stupid, she wasn't spoiled, and she had more of a right to moodiness than Marrow had. **Logan, she was just thinking aloud. No one else was meant to hear that. She may not even be aware she said it.**

"I don't like what she was thinkin'—"

Jean sighed. "I don't like what she was thinking, either, Logan. But she's entitled to her own thoughts. Forget you heard it, Logan. Let it go." Then, sensing Logan was still quietly simmering, she said, "Jubilee wouldn't want you to get into a fight on her behalf."

"Nah. She wouldn't." Logan switched subjects. "So you and Scott got yerself a cab, eh?"

"Yes, it should be here soon," Jean said. "I have to go up and get our bags. See you later, Logan." She turned and headed into the mansion. Logan turned to follow her, then paused as he smelled the scent of a poorly-maintained gasoline engine puffing up the drive. "Yer cab's here, Jeannie," he said, knowing she could still hear him.

Her telepathic voice filtered into his mind. **Thank you. Please tell the driver we'll be right down.**

The cab pulled up, and the driver rolled down his window and poked his head out. "Need a lift?"

Logan jerked his thumb back at the door. "Wait a bit. They'll be out." He took off, taking a circular route back into the mansion. He didn't want to run into Jean and Scott coming out; didn't want them to know what he was planning on doing. _If bone girl's gonna be sleepin' in our basement, then she's gonna hafta follow the rules. An' one o' them has ta do with bein' nice an' decent t'everybody else!_

Jubilee slipped into a comfortable half-doze as the car wended its way to the airstrip. _I wish I coulda stayed,_ she thought wistfully. _As much as I miss seein' Ev and Ange and Paige and God help me, even M…I'd'a liked to hang with Wolvie for a while. Damn. You're in it deep, aren't you, Lee? _She shook her head at herself. _Used to be self sufficient. Me, myself and I, remember, Lee? Then this big hairy dude gets crucified right in front of you and all those lessons you learned about life and survivin' go, like, totally out the window. You almost lose your life stickin' up for these guys, especially said 'big hairy dude' and what do you get? You get sent back as soon as things calm down enough for them to remember you. And you still look at this guy like he's the center of your universe._ A tear slid slowly down her cheek. _I couldn't bear it if he's mad at me for talking. I can't blame him, though. I'll never be able to forgive myself._

All too soon they reached the airstrip. The driver, still silent, opened the door of the car and held it open as she got out, clutching the small bag with her toothbrush in it. As soon as she was out, he shut the door, got back in, and drove away. Jubilee had to do a one-eighty degree turn before she finally saw the plane, a small, single-engine two-passenger plane, sitting on the tarmac with an equally silent pilot beside it. She started walking toward it. _Dang. Coulda at least like, let me know he was here. Although, seein' as how this all belongs to Frosty, guess nobody gets paid to ask questions. Maybe she personality-wiped 'em?_ As Jubilee approached he plane, she ventured a brave smile and said as cheerfully as she could, "It ain't a bird, and it's definitely not Super-Dude, so I guess this is my plane?" The man stared at her blankly, and she shook her head as she climbed in. "Dude. Like, get a sense of humor." _Yep. Definitely got personality-wiped. Gotta watch out for that round Frosty, I guess. I can just hear her now;'you do not get paid to think!'_

It was hard to stay in a funk when all you saw below you was cities and cars and people and stuff going by under you like ants on an anthill. It wasn't the first plane ride Jubilee had ever taken, but never before had she been on one alone, without someone to talk to. She half-wondered if Emma had had the man's vocal cords surgically removed, then decided that she didn't want the pilot to be talking to her anyway, in case they crashed into something. So she sat in the backseat of the plane, stared at the miles going by under her, and stayed silent.

_I shouldn't even be complaining,_ she thought suddenly. _Being up here is better than being back at the Hulkbuster Base, which is where I'd probably still be if Daria hadn't busted me out; or dead, if Wolvie hadn't rescued me. There was a time when I thought I'd never see the sky, or clouds, or sun or anything, again. Now I know why 'Ro sleeps in the attic, and why she takes those long solitary flights. After being buried alive, you kind of like, need to get away sometimes. I kinda wish I could fly. I'd be taking a long solitary flight. Maybe fly my way back to Massachusetts without the use of a plane—_She shifted in her seat as she said it, and a twinge of pain from her body reminded her forcibly of what she'd gone through, and how much she still hurt. _Scratch that. I do not want to be flying, with the way I feel now. I just want to curl up and sleep. Preferably back at the mansion, but since I wasn't really given a choice_…Jubilee opened the bag and reached into the bottom. Logan had bought her a new yellow trenchcoat, the same as the one she'd had that Bastion had taken away, but when he wasn't looking she'd taken something of his; one of his ubiquitous black t-shirts. It was saturated with his scent; his body plus the odor of the cigars he smoked, and that helped calm the butterflies in her stomach and her nerves.

Until the plane started circling for a landing. Jubilee looked down, and saw the familiar, peaceful-looking layout of the Academy under her. There was the biosphere, the main building, the lecture hall, the basketball courts…everything looked deceptively peaceful, so quiet in the afternoon sunshine, that she felt a sense of unreality about the place. Could this possibly be the same place she had been kidnapped from a month ago? All of a sudden it felt a little less safe; the shadows cast on the ground by the taller buildings were sinister rather than mere shadows; the quietness of the grounds and buildings was cold and unfriendly rather than homely and inviting. All of a sudden, she wanted very much for the plane to turn around and take her back to the mansion.

But it was coming in for a landing, coming finally to rest on the basketball court, and there was Emma, dressed in her usual white lingerie, coming toward the plane. Jubilee felt tears sting her eyes, and tried to wipe them away. It had just been so damn long since she'd seen the White Queen, and the place and people she'd come to think of as her home away from home—her real home—the mansion. And there, right beside Emma, was Sean, his red hair flaming in the sunlight, and behind him the other students. Jubilee caught sight of Paige's blond hair, Jono's unruly mop. Artie and Leech's unmistakable skin color…and then it was all blotted out as Emma's platinum-blond hair and attention-grabbing cleavage filled her sight.

Emma poked her head into the plane's compartment, hiding Jubilee's face from those of her classmates. Jubilee was glad of it; she didn't want them to see her crying like a baby. As if sensing that. Emma turned and spoke to the pilot, who answered her various questions about the flight with an expressionless "Yes Ma'am. No ma'am. Yes, Ma'am." When Jubilee had gotten herself more or less under control, she handed the overnight case to Emma and climbed out of the plane—

—and was promptly grabbed into a giant bear hug by Sean, who them proceeded to half-smother her as he crushed her to his chest. "Oh, lass, ye got no idea how much ye were missed! What happened? How'd ye get separated from t'others? Are ye all right?" Jubilee was trying to answer his questions, but he was enfolding her in such an enthusiastic hug she could barely get a word in edgewise. At least she hadn't had as bad of a reaction to him touching her as she'd been having back at the mansion. _Hmm. Time really does help cure all wounds_, she thought. Aloud, she giggled, "Sean! Dude! Like, I can't answer if I can't breathe!" He finally released her, and she tried to straighten her rumpled clothes.

Emma was suddenly there, her presence almost overwhelming. "Jubilation. I wish to speak to you in private, please. Sean, you may accompany me." She handed Jubilee's tiny case to Paige as she swept by the blond girl in the doorway. "Please take this to Jubilee's room."

The kids took the command for what it was; a dismissal. They filed into the building, but not before Angelo stretched the skin of his face in weird directions, making Jubilee almost break into a sudden laugh, and mouthed "We're glad you're back, _chica_!" before Jubilee turned the corner with Sean and Emma and the other students were lost to view.

She tried to make the explanation as simple as she could, omitting as much of the unpleasant details as she could. Still, as she finished her quiet, halting narrative and Emma's office fell silent, she had the feeling that Sean and Emma had gotten a great deal more than she had said.

"We're sorry, lass," Sean said, suddenly sounding years older. "We're sorry. Things were just so confused, and confusing…" He lapsed into quiet.

Emma, who hadn't said a word while Jubilee was speaking, roused herself, rising from her chair. "I am sorry, too, Jubilee," she said…and for once, she truly sounded sorry. Jubilee wondered if she'd let any of the horrible mental images that had been swimming around in her mind leak out past her now- tight shields, but Emma didn't act as though Jubilee had let anything particularly nasty out. Maybe she just really was sorry. "I am sorry you went through this. We didn't know. We were concerned when you didn't return with the others…but we had been unable to contact any of the X-Men concerning your disappearance." She sighed. "Now, as Jean informed me, the mansion has been severely lacking in the basic amentities, so perhaps you would welcome a hot shower and some decent food. You are free to raid the kitchen for whatever you would like with the others. Classes are in recess until tomorrow, so you can settle back in and get reacquainted. Do you feel as though you could resume classes tomorrow?"

Jubilee nodded. "Cecelia—the doctor back at the mansion—said that I should take it easy for another week. And she gave me some…vitamins…to take daily for a little while to…make up for the lack of nutrition."

"Then you are excused from all classes which require physical exertion until the end of the week. Attend regular classes, get settled in…and when you feel you need to talk, please feel free to come to Sean or myself."

_Yeah, right_, Jubilee snorted mentally. _Not likely_. _Not that I don't like you—hey, I don't—but I don't want you pokin' around in my head. An' I don't think I wanna talk to Irish either_. Aloud, she said simply, "Thank you."

Outside Emma's office, she breathed a sigh of relief, then looked around. Same old, same old. Nothing had changed. Feeling the familiar surroundings lift her spirits slightly, she strolled down the hall, around the corner—

—and walked smack dab into her classmates, Skin-first. He grabbed her in a hug (since he was taller, it wasn't that hard) and whirled her around in a circle, repeating her name over and over again. Jubilee grinned. "Ange, put me down!"

He did, eventually, and Paige crowded forward. "Where have you been? And what happened to your hair!" she sounded horrified as she took in Jubilee's ragged-edged locks. Jubilee smiled. _Trust Paigey to be concerned about my hair and stuff,_ she thought wryly. _Well, no one else at the mansion seemed concerned._

"I'm hungry. Anything to eat around here?" Yes, suddenly she was hungry. She hadn't had much of an appetite back at the mansion, but then, there hadn't been much to eat there anyway. Suddenly she was starving for one of Angelo's messy overstuffed cold cut sandwiches with mayo and pickles and all the fixings. "Tell you what. I'll tell you what happened—" the G rated version, of course—"If Ange'll make me one of his Skin-buster Specials."

"You got a deal, _chica_!" Angelo bounced off into the kitchen. The others followed him, and in the confusion, Jubilee said to Paige, "Not to seem vain in fronta the guys, Hayseed, but do you have, like, a pair of scissors anywhere? I really wanna do something about my hair. And then you gotta tell me everything that's happened—"

The students went into the kitchen, still chattering.

Emma sat back in her chair, sighing. "Sean, it could have been worse."

Sean stared at the toes of his shoes moodily. "Maybe it was worse, and th' lass didn't tell us?"

Emma dismissed that eventuality with a wave of her hand. "I would have felt it if it were. Jubilee isn't that good at mental shielding. She told us what happened, Sean. I think the best thing we can do now is carry on like normal. Eventually, as Jubilee settles in, she'll become accustomed again to her normal routine, and all of this will vanish like a bad dream."

"Maybe yer right. Emma. Maybe you're right." But Sean didn't quite sound convinced.

End notes:

Jean and Scott left in the latter pages of X-Men 71, so consider this chapter set 'between panels' of that issue. I didn't use any of the dialogue, though.

In the end panels of that issue Logan goes and deliberately starts a fight with Marrow in the basement. It seems uncharacteristic of him, so I tried to come up with an idea for why he would do that. And what I came up with was if Marrow had said something about Jubilee. He would definitely take offense at what Marrow had said if it had something to do with Jubilee. And there has to be a reason why he didn't do it just then, so I added Jean into the scene. Somehow it all worked.

Okay, now that I've covered the unexplained disappearance of Jubilee from the plane in UXM #350, now I have to cover her reappearance in # 353 and #354. Boy, Marvel just loves to throw those curveballs…

Stay tuned for the next chapter!


	17. Sean

Chapter 17: Sean

Sean lay in bed, staring up into the darkness.

He'd gotten back from Muir Island and seeing Moira earlier that day, and jet lag made things feel 'off' for him. Added to that, there had been a strained atmosphere around the school, and an overall feeling of unreality. Emma was worrying obsessively about the M twins. Sean, though he was worried about them too, was also concerned about the rest of the students. With classes suspended for the duration of the emergency (who would have taught the classes, anyway? And which of the kids would have actually paid attention?) the kids had been mainly left to their own devices, both Sean and Emma trusting them to not make a hash of things. Synch was keeping them all in line, and the only quarter Sean might have expected trouble coming from was conspicuously silent.

Maybe not trouble, but Jubilee was usually the one around whom mischief hung. Practical jokes, pranking, a little childish thing that was a constant nuisance for Sean and Emma but never escalated beyond that…all of that was absent. He'd asked Emma earlier how Jubilee seemed to be settling in, and Emma had replied rather absently, "She's doing fine." Not at all comforted by that vague, dismissive tone, Sean had gone hunting for Jubilee himself.

He'd found her in the biosphere, sitting in the tree house. Just sitting. Staring into nothing. Sean had been a little alarmed when he saw her; there were dark circles under her eyes, and she looked like she hadn't had a good sleep in a while. "What's wrong, lass?" he'd asked her, sitting beside her.

She'd changed position, uncomfortably, trying to shift as unobtrusively as she could farther away from him. "Nothing."

She'd been putting a lot of distance between herself and the other boys, and between herself and him. He made a mental note to ask Paige if Jubilee had been avoiding her too. "If t'ain't nothing, lass, ye'd not be up here sulkin'," he pointed out the obvious. "Ye can tell me the truth, lass. I don't bite."

Jubilee got up and paced across the floor of the treehouse uncomfortably. "I'm fine, Sean," she insisted, hugging her thin shoulders in a gesture that spoke eloquently of her unwillingness to talk. "I'm fine. Really."

**Sean?** came Emma's mental voice. He froze, listening for it, and sighed. "Emma's calling, lass. I'll have tae go see what it is she'll be wantin' now."

Jubilee looked at him, her lips curving in a faint smile. "Big surprise. She's always wanting something," she said quietly. As suddenly as it had come, the smile vanished, and Jubilee returned to her quiet contemplation of the biosphere's flora. "You'd better go, then. Emma was absent the day God handed out patience."

Sean laughed at that, then got up. Just before he left the treehouse, he placed a gentle hand on Jubilee's shoulder, felt her muscles tense at his touch. "Be well, lass," he said quietly, then left.

Emma had wanted to discuss some readings the equipment had picked up from the twins, so they had spent most of the afternoon doing that. Emma seemed to be of the opinion that Jubilee was doing fine, but Sean, thinking back on the way Jubilee had tensed when he touched her, hadn't been so sure. Jubilee was a former street rat, self-sufficient and independent, and she guarded her privacy like a mama cat guarded her litter of kittens. Sean didn't want to intrude on that privacy, but now he was wondering if he shouldn't…

A scream shattered the silence of the cool Massachusetts night. "_NO! NO, STOP IT, PLEASE!"_

There were pounding footsteps echoing in the corridor even as another shriek split the night. Sean threw the covers back and fumbled in the darkness for his pants, which he finally located and yanked on as the cries became increasingly more frantic. Then suddenly a new voice, male, psychic, hollered in unmistakably panicked tones, **Emma!** As Sean yanked open his room door, the screaming voice became clearer, and he identified it. Jubilee.

_Knew th' lass wasn't all right,_ he thought as he closed his door and hurried down the hall. There was a knot of students in front of Jubilee's open room door, and Sean could see Emma pushing her way through them. He picked up his pace, and stopped in the doorway of Jubilee's room, appalled.

The room was perfectly clean. All her clothes were tucked neatly in their drawers, everything was in its place, and the room was spotless. A stark, contrast to her usually sloppy self. The only thing out of place was Jubilee herself.

She was wearing a tank top with spaghetti straps and a pair of pajama shorts, both of which looked several sizes too big for her. Her collarbones stuck out over the top of the shirt, in such sharp relief Sean could have sworn the bone would split her skin. She was definitely a lot thinner than she had been when she'd come back to the Academy, and he wondered what could be causing her physical deterioration.

But that could wait. Right now she was thrashing about on that spotless room floor, her legs entangled in sheets, her upper body wrapped in Angelo's arms and his extended epidermis. Jono, kneeling beside the two on the floor, was obviously the one who'd called for Emma. **Ange wrapped her in his skin t'keep her from hurtin' herself, **he was explaining to Emma as Emma held Jubilee's shaking body.

Angelo was untangling his skin from around Jubilee. "Chica's already bruised her knuckles," he said heavily, and Sean saw that Jubilee's fists had struck the wall and the side of her bedside table, and she'd split the skin. There was blood on her fingers. She was continuing to scream, mindless, incoherent sounds of pain interspersed with sobs.

Emma shook Jubilee hard as Skin and Jono stepped back. "Jubilee, wake up," she said firmly.

Jubilee continued to flail and twist, trying to free herself from Emma's arms. "Nonononono…" It was a litany of pain, a plea for mercy from the tormentor who haunted her dreams.

"Jubilee! Wake up!" Emma raised her voice a little, and speaking psychically at the same time. Wrapped up in the dream, Jubilee didn't wake.

Emma drew her hand back and slapped Jubilee's cheek, not hard enough to mark or bruise, just hard enough to sting. At the same time, she ordered, "JUBILEE WAKE UP!"

Sean drew a breath to protest as he stepped in. "Emma…" he started, then cut himself off as Jubilee's eyes snapped open. They were haunted, dark, full of remembered pain, and the look in them almost broke Sean's heart. Those big blue eyes looked at both he and Emma with a look of pleading, for understanding and help. But he felt helpless; he didn't know how to help, and Emma…

Emma sat back on her heels. "Are you all right now?" she said briskly. Not hostile, not angry, just matter-of-factly. Cool. Unconcerned. As if this was normal.

Jubilee stared at Emma for a moment, looking hurt, then drew back into herself and sat up on her floor. "I'm fine now, Ms. Frost," she said quietly, swallowing hard. "Just fine."

_No ye aren't,_ Sean thought to himself, but before he could say anything else, Emma stood up. "You're all right. And we all need to get some sleep. Go on back to your rooms." She waved her hands at the kids as she strode off to her own, looking almost ghost-like in the sheer white muslin of her negligee. Sean sighed as the kids started to leave, one by one, until only he was left, looking at Jubilee still sitting on the floor next to her bed. She looked up as he stepped tentatively into her room. "Are ye all right, lass? Truth." He already knew she wasn't.

Jubilee looked for a moment like she was going to deny it, then shook her head as she hugged her knees to her chest and folded her arms on top of them. "Yes. No. I don't know, Mr. Cassidy."

Sean sat down on the floor next to her, not close enough to set off her proximity alarms, but close enough to let her know if she needed to cry he was there. He hated seeing females cry, but he did understand sometimes they had to. Everyone had to. "Sean, lass. We're not in class now. What were ye dreamin' about?"

"Bastion's lab." Jubilee changed the subject abruptly. "Sean, have you heard from Wolv—from the mansion? I asked Emma, but she didn't tell me."

Sean frowned. "I've nae heard from them. Not since ye got back. Why?"

Jubilee sounded close to tears as she said, "Then they've gotta be mad at me. That's gotta be why they like, rushed me outta there."

"Rushed you—" Sean started to say, but Jubilee ignored him, her words coming out in a rush.

"Bastion kidnapped me and tried to get me to tell him where to find the X-Men, and I'm like, 'no', and he's like, 'yes', and he kept trying and trying to get me to say, and I think I finally did but I don't remember 'cause of all the drugs an' stuff but I know he stopped asking and then there they were, the X-Men I mean, Jean and Scott and Sam and Wolvie and 'Ro, and Bastion said it was all my fault. I got them free but I don't know if they know it was me that told 'cause I tried not to tell but I told Wolvie 'cause I didn't think he'd be mad at me, and I told Jean 'cause I just hadda talk about it to someone, and I didn't think they'd get mad at me. Jean said she wasn't, and Wolvie said he wasn't, but then they rushed me back here when I really really wanted to stay with Wolvie for a while, and they have to be mad at me 'cause nobody's said anything to me since…" she ran out of breath and words.

Sean silently wrapped an arm around her shoulders. "Jubilee, they didnae rush ye out o' there because they were mad at ye. They did that tae protect ye. There be a lot of new people there, from what Jean told Emma over the phone when she called to say they had ye; an' I don't think they're quite certain o' all o' them. I think they thought they were protectin' ye. Ye've already gone through a lot, an' I'm sorry fer not even realizin' ye was gone. If I'd noticed, Emma an' I might have been able t'send a rescue out fer ye sooner, and ye'd not have had tae go through all that."

Jubilee sighed. "That's what Wolvie said. But I still feel kinda like they sorta just didn't want me, and they were still mad at me for spilling the beans."

"Nothin' o' th' sort!" Sean shook his head indignantly. "I've known Logan a long time, lass, and there's nothing ye could do that'd make him not want ye around. An' if anyone else'd had an issue with that, Logan would have sorted that out straightaway. None o' that was your fault, an' don't ever think otherwise." He took her hand in his, looking into her eyes. "D'ye hear me, lass? It was nae your fault. Don't blame yourself." He looked down, feeling the torn skin on Jubilee's knuckles. "Come on. Let's get ye cleaned up." Jubilee rose with him.

After he got her cleaned up, soothed with a cup of hot chocolate, and tucked back into bed, Sean returned to his room, frowning, and lay down. He should have been tired, but his mind was racing and he couldn't sleep.

Finally, sighing, he got out of bed, sat down at his desk, and grabbed a sheet of paper and a pen, After thinking for a moment, he began to write.

_Dear Logan…_

_….and she's having bad nightmares. Emma isn't handling things with the same delicacy I think the lass needs, and she really misses you and the mansion. I'm not sure she's ready to come back to school and her studies. She's still dealing with the aftereffects of her kidnapping, and neither Emma nor I have enough of an emotional bond with her to set her at ease…_

Logan sighed as he set the letter down on his dresser table. With all the crap going on here at the mansion, all the new people…he really hadn't wanted Jubilee to be around. Not with all these people he didn't know or trust hanging around. She was already fragile, emotionally, from her ordeal with Bastion; she needed a regular routine, not a hectic schedule. Still…his eyes returned to the letter, written in Sean's strong, square handwriting:

_Things here are no more settled than they are where you are. We've got our own problems with one of our students, and that has been occupying much of Emma's time and attention. The lass really wants to be with you; I had a little talk with her not ten minutes ago that told me that. And I know you well enough to know that you're still thinking of her too. Make it easier on both of you; come and see her. She'll welcome that. Don't worry about Emma. I'll clear things with her. Sincerely, Sean._

Yeah, he missed her. Not a day had gone by when he didn't think about her. How she was doing, if she still blamed herself…

Yeah. When things calmed down here a little, he'd go and see how Jubilee was doing.

End notes:

There's nothing from this chapter that ties in with the comic books; this is my way of explaining what happend to Jubilee while the mansion was being rebuilt and there was no sign of Jubilee. Next chapter we're going to figure out how she got back to the X-men for her brief reappearance. Stay tuned!


	18. Frosty Reception

Chapter 18: Frosty Reception

Flames leaped upward, toward the sky.

Standing this close to the fire made the heat all that much more intense, but Logan welcomed it. The heat from the flames burned the cold rage out of his soul, cleansed it once and for all, just as he'd just cleansed the world of the little blotch of darkness walking around on it.

He smoked his cigar fiercely, taking long drags on it and letting the smoke fill his lungs. MacLeish. _Damn the man_. With all the stuff going on at the mansion, he hadn't needed yet another complication; and an assassin Logan had thought dead for the last ten years suddenly showing up definitely qualified as a complication. Well, he'd taken care of that.

Logan tossed the butt of his cigar into the fire, watched the flames instantly consume it, and tuned his back on the pyre. "Good riddance," he growled angrily, and yanked open the door of the battered old Jeep he'd found behind MacLeish's cabin. His bike had been destroyed, and hey, MacLeish was certainly not going to be needing it anymore, so…he shrugged as he climbed in. The keys dropped obligingly into his lap when he lowered the driver's side visor, and he grinned as he stuck the key in the ignition. The sound of the old engine starting up mingled with the sound of crackling flames…and, faintly, over the sounds of the fire, he heard fire engine sirens coming closer.

He peeled out of there, taking an indirect route out of the immediate area. By the time the fire department got the flames put out, there would be few recognizable features on the body in the middle of that blaze. But Logan had left MacLeish's ID and wallet in there with him; they'd identify him. And after they did, they wouldn't look too hard at all for the killer. MacLeish was wanted in a long string of countries for an equally long string of murders. Assassinations. He killed for money, and as long as the pay was good enough he'd kill anyone. Whoever eliminated him would be doing Interpol a favor, and prevent another file having to be opened on another of MacLeish's assassinations.

_Yeah. Which begs the question; who's he got this time_? Logan frowned. _He usually don't show himself till he's got plans already underway, and if I know him, he's probably got several up his sleeve. So…what plan was he hatchin' at the moment, an' why show himself ta me now?_

Still pondering, he turned off the main road and took the roads leading back to the mansion.

The question was still bothering him much later, as he was toweling off after his shower. And he couldn't sleep while he was this distracted.

He yanked on a pair of jeans and a black t-shirt, and headed downstairs for a beer from the fridge. Everyone was off doing their own thing, and there were no telepaths currently in the mansion to be poking around in his head. He liked that; he liked having his privacy.

_Screw that. I'd give my privacy away fer Jeannie an' ol' One Eye back_, he thought as he pried the cap off a bottle of Corona. Bobby's favorite, not his. He liked Molson's, but the last time Bobby and Sam had made a liquor store run, they hadn't thought to get any of Logan's favorite. Oh well. He tossed his head back, letting the bitter taste of the beer run over his tongue and down his throat to his stomach. _Much as I hate to admit it, I want Cyke back. An' Jeannie. I ain't cut out fer this leadership crap. An' 'Ro ain't doin' all that good either. Dammit, I miss everyone. Even that damned Cajun. _He quickly steered his mind away from that line of thought; the less time spent on that topic the better.

Instead, he returned to worry over MacLeish's motives, his mind refusing to leave it alone, like a dog worrying a bone. _What the hell was he doin' here? Why here, why now? I know I'm his target this time, but who else was he after now?_

Logan knew MacLeish's modus operandi by now. Pick the assignment, stake out the target. Get friendly with the target. Find out who was most important to the target. Then nab that person, and send a ransom letter to the target: **You in exchange for your loved one**. They came. They always came. The heart could be a dangerous weapon in the wrong hands, and MacLeish's hands were definitely the worst. You didn't want to wind up on the wrong side of the guy.

So. Who was here that MacLeish had gotten close to? It had been ten long years since MacLeish had surfaced on Logan's 'radar', but he didn't think the man would have changed his way of doing things. Whatever works, right? And so far his usual way of getting his victims had been working. Getting close, then arranging for a kidnapping…

_Kidnapping!_ Logan jerked bolt upright in his seat as the realization hit him. _He mighta been tryin' ta find out who's currently the most important person in my life right now to me. And he mighta been plannin' on goin' after…who? Who're the most important people in my life right now? Jeannie. But she's in Alaska with Cyke. Ororo, but she's here. I smelled her scent in her attic room. And…Jubilee._

The more the thought about it, the more apprehensive he got. Jubilee. Young and vulnerable enough for MacLeish; and Logan already knew Sean and Emma had missed Jubilee's kidnapping the first time by Bastion…would they notice if she went missing, kidnapped by MacLeish's operatives? If she was hanging out with her friends at the mall, and got separated, would they notice before it was too late? Was MacLeish's operative sitting out there somewhere with Jubilee tied up, waiting for MacLeish to call with instructions on what to do with the 'package'? The possibilities were endless, and none of them were comforting. In fact, the more he thought about it, he more paranoid he got.

"Is it not a little early for you to be indulging, Logan?" came a quiet voice from the doorway, and he looked up to see Ororo standing in the doorway. "It is the middle of the afternoon, after all."

"Ain't never too early for a beer, 'Ro," Logan quipped as he smiled at her. She smiled back, her blue eyes twinkling. "Hey. You got things here? I gotta take a run up to Massachusetts."

Her smile disappeared. "Is something wrong with Jubilee?"

He shook his head. "No. Maybe. I don't know. I ran into an old…acquaintance," the way the word came out made it sound like a curse, "an' he made me start thinkin'." He briefly outlined his encounter with MacLeish. After facing evil aliens like the Brood, and those bent on destroying the galaxy, a petty assassin and criminal like MacLeish was small potatoes…but nothing was small to Logan when it came to protecting the people he cared about. And right now he was very concerned about a vulnerable young girl at a Massachusetts boarding school. Especially after Sean's letter, which had been sitting on his dresser for the last two weeks, mutely accusing him of not having done anything yet by its mere presence.

Ororo sat down at the kitchen table as he talked, and when he finally fell silent, she said quietly, "If you leave now you should be able to get there by early tomorrow morning."

He grinned up at her. "Thanks, 'Ro. Are you sure…?"

She sighed. "I will manage. I am worried about Jubilee as well. We have not heard anything from her, Sean or Emma lately."

Logan paused by her chair on his way out of the kitchen. "…'Ro? Thanks. I won't be gone long. Just wanna make sure she's okay." He placed a hand on her shoulder, squeezing it gently, once, briefly, before leaving the kitchen. He stopped in his room just long enough to throw a change of clothes in his duffle bag, and went out to the garage. Soon afterwards Ororo heard the roar of the Jeep as it faded off into the distance.

The school was quiet. Emma had gone to bed, and Sean was on his way, striding down the hall toward the stairs that would take him to his room, when the bell at the front door dinged. Frowning, wondering who that could be, he pressed the intercom button. "Who is it?"

"S' me, Irish. Logan," came the unmistakable gravelly voice.

"Logan!" Sean quickly yanked open the front door, admitting Logan carrying his bag slung over one shoulder. "If I'd known ye were comin' I'd have told Jubilee…she'd have stayed awake tae see ye."

"Jubilee, is she okay? She still here?" Logan decided to skip the hunt and tree the prey.

Sean frowned. "Aye, she is. Saw her head up tae her room a couple hours ago. Why?"

"It's a long story." Logan shifted the duffle bag on his shoulder. "Got somewhere where we can talk? Got a bone to pick with you…"

Sean shifted his weight from one foot to the other, uncomfortably. "Aye, well… I been expectin' this. Cannae say I blame ye, either. Come this way, my office is over here…" he closed the door and led Logan down the hall.

Logan walked in first and dropped the bag on the floor, then turned to face Sean, anger now evident in his eyes. Safe in the privacy of the office, he didn't bother to restrain himself. "How in hell does Jubilee go missin' fer a whole friggin' month and you and Frost never noticed! Chuck left ya two responsible for her, an' look at what happened!"

Sean ran ha hand through his flaming hair and sighed, staring at his slippers. "I cannae blame ye for bein' upset, Logan. I been asking myself that a lot, since she came back tae us. Things were hectic then, and a lot o' things were happening. Mondo and Black Tom had me all wrapped up—"

"Don't try t' make excuses, Irish," Logan warned. There was a quiet _shhhk_ as his claws slid out.

"…Things had me all wrapped up, but it doesnae excuse the fact that when the kids came back we didn't realize th' lass was missin'. And when we did, we sat on our arses an' twiddled our thumbs wonderin' what tae do 'bout it 'stead o' callin' ye or the rest o' the X-Men tae let ye all know tae look out fer her. I cannae make an excuse, Logan. All I can say is I'm sorry." Sean was clearly distressed.

Logan looked at Sean, and the anger he'd been carrying around for his old teammate dissipated. His claws slid back into his forearms. "Ah, she's safe now, Irish. All we can do now is concentrate on her recovery. A lot o' stuff happened tae her back there in the Hulkbuster base, an' none o' it was good. Things were very unsettled at the mansion; Bastion stripped it o' every stick o' furniture, all our clothes and stuff was gone, an' for the first few days Jubilee slept on the stolen Zero Tolerance cargo transport cause we just didn't have nowhere else to let her sleep. And she needed it, bad."

Sean nodded sympathetically. "For th' first couple o' days after she came back the wee lass did a lot o' sleeping. Worn out, she was, and exhausted. And too thin. She's started gaining the weight back, but she's still not healthy. And her spirits seem somewhat dampened." He sighed. "And tae tell ye the truth, Logan, I'm nae so sure that she might not be better of with ye, no matter how things are down there in New York. Emma is—"

He broke off as a piercing scream echoed through the school. Logan sprang up out of his chair, heading for the door before Sean was even out of his seat. "It's Jubilee!"

"The lass has nightmares," Sean said tersely as he ran to overtake Logan. " And Emma doesnae handle them well. This way," he said, taking the stairs two at a time and leading Logan at full speed down the hall toward a knot of students huddled in the doorway. Logan smelled Jubilee's scent, heavily laced with the stink of fear, just before she screamed out again, incoherent with terror. Then Emma's voice, drowning out Jubilee's. "Jubilee, wake up!" Jubilee just screamed.

Logan shoved his way through the knot of students, just in time to see Emma literally shake Jubilee. "JUBILEE, I SAID WAKE UP!" And she brought her hand up and slapped the screaming, sobbing girl hard enough to leave a red handprint on Jubilee's pale cheek.

A roar of rage filled the room, and suddenly Emma was hurtling backwards, swept off Jubilee by a raging blur. In the span of time between one heartbeat and the next, she found herself pinned to the wall by a strong hand wrapped around her throat—and another hand, this one sporting three adamantium claws, was only a millimeter from her eyes.

"Don't," said the growling voice of the man who held her pinned. "Don't ya dare lay a hand on Jubes. How the hell…where do you get off abusin' yer students? How the hell do ya justify that? She's been hurt enough already, Frost!"

Emma couldn't say anything; the hand around her throat prohibited speech. She spoke telepathically. **Logan, I was only trying to wake her up. Her nightmares become extremely violent; if left unchecked she could injure herself.**

"Yer a telepath, wake her up that way. You don't gotta hit her to wake her up!" His hand tightened around Emma's neck. She gurgled, her hands coming up to tug ineffectually at the fingers clamped around her neck.

Sean stepped forward. "Logan, let Emma go—"

Logan growled, and the claws swung away from Emma's eyes to point at Sean's. His other hand never relaxed its grip on the former White Queen's throat, however. "Don't get me mad at ya too, Irish," he threatened. "This is what you meant when you said Emma wasn't handlin' Jubilee right, wasn't it? How could ya just stand there an' let her abuse Jubilee like this—"

He was distracted by the sound of another whimper from Jubilee, who had curled up on the floor in a miserable ball, still caught in the grip of her nightmare. Logan's anger vanished, replaced by concern for her. The other kids, standing in the doorway, were staring with wide eyes, but they hadn't dared step into the room, not with Violence Personified threatening both their teachers.

"Ah, you ain't worth wastin' time on." Logan released Emma, turning away from her as she slid down the wall to sit limply on the floor, her hands coming up to massage the handprint around her throat. Sean sidestepped around Logan, carefully, and went to her, helping her stand.

He knelt beside Jubilee, taking her gently in his arms. The handprint was only momentary; there would be no bruise…but he still hadn't liked the sight or sound of Emma's hand impacting Jubilee's cheek. He cradled her upper body in his arms, his hand coming up to gently caress Jubilee's cheek. "Come on now, Jubes. Yer safe. Wake up."

Jubilee's eyelids twitched, and then popped open. For a moment she tensed, blinking her gritty eyes, rubbing at them to try and clear them so she could see who was holding her. When she saw who it was…

"Wolvie?" her voice was soft. "Is it you? You didn't forget about me?" She swallowed hard, and said even softer, "You're not still mad at me for telling Bastion?"

Logan felt his heart contract. She really thought she'd been sent away because they were mad at her? Hadn't he told her they weren't? Hadn't Jean? "No, Jubes," he said as gently as he could. "Ain't been mad at ya at all, darlin'. Just thought maybe you'd be better off here than back at the mansion."

Jubilee hid her face in his shirt and started to cry. "I was so afraid you guys were all mad at me…Jean said you weren't, and you said you weren't, but I got sent back up here anyway and I thought it was because you guys didn't want me around anymore…Wolvie, I missed you… I wanted to stay so badly, but Jean said it was best…"

Logan hugged her tight for a moment, smelling her tears as they dampened the front of his shirt, the scent of her sweat and the remnants of terror left from her dream still strong, but fading. She felt so fragile in his arms, so vulnerable…

_Cyke an' Jeannie left 'Ro an' me in charge. That means we make the decisions. If I wanna bring Jubes back cause she ain't settlin' in, I can._ Aloud he said to her, "Pack yer bags. We're goin' home." Oh, that sounded so good. Home. Back where he could keep an eye on her. Not because of MacLeish (the assassin was now no more than a memory) but because Jubilee needed to be where she felt safe so she could start to heal emotionally, and the mansion (and himself) was more a home to her than any other place on earth.

"Really?" Jubilee looked up at him. "I can go home?"

"Yes. We're gonna go home 'til you feel ready to come back. I ain't gonna hurry you away this time." That had probably caused her insecurity in the first place, thinking they were upset with her and didn't want her around anymore. Jean meant well, but…

"Hold on," Emma rasped as she stood up, shaking off Sean's hand. "She was entrusted to my care. She needs to have my permission to go—"

"Emma, let th' lass go," Sean warned, seeing the feral light in Logan's eyes. Too late. Logan took two quick steps toward her, his claws popping out as he moved, until their sharp edge dimpled the skin of her throat just slightly. Not enough to draw blood, but definitely enough to make his point.

"You were sayin'?" Logan's eyes had an unpleasant, feral glitter in them.

"You may go, Jubilee," Emma said quickly. "Let me know when you're ready to come back to school, and I'll send my car to pick you up." As quickly as she could and still retain her dignity, she retreated from Jubilee's room, followed by Sean. Her eyes looked somewhat unfocused, and by the look of Sean's sudden squirming, she was having some private words with him telepathically. Logan ignored that as he reached for Jubilee's room door. "Show's over, kids. Go back to bed." He closed the door firmly, and turned to Jubilee, who was already diving under her bed for the battered duffle bag she kept for overnight trips.

End Notes:

The assassin MacLeish is mentioned in Maverick #4 and Wolverine#119-122, but since Jubilee didn't appear in any of them, I decided I could get by with simply mentioning what has gone on with Logan while Jubilee was up at the Academy.

Someone mentioned that the story seemed to be 'putting along with no end in sight'. Since this is only one storyline in a comic series, it technically doesn't have an end. Marvel never wrote any sort of resolution for Jubilee post Operation Zero Tolerance: so I wrote this to fill in the gaps. There are only two more chapters to go, and then I'll be making a few corrections to details in 'How Far' to tie this story into the Jaenelle-verse (thank you, Ellie!) Think of this as the 'How Far' series.

There's only two more chaps left in this story; hang in there! And thanks so much for reading!


	19. Going Home

Chapter 19: Going Home

Jubilee was mostly quiet as they headed down the road that would take them away from the Academy. Logan looked over at her, slightly concerned. She wasn't usually this quiet. "You okay, Jubes?" he said gently.

She turned her head to look at him, and he saw the dark shadows under her blue eyes. "Yeah. I'm okay, Wolvie," she said softly. "I just…I'm glad to see you, that's all. How'd you get here?"

He returned his eyes to the road. "I never forgot about ya, darlin'," he said quietly. "I never could. Never will. After you left I kept thinkin' 'bout ya, kept hopin' you'd be okay, kept wonderin' if you were gonna be okay. Sean sent me a letter a little while back tellin' me you weren't doin' all right, but I had some things goin' on an' I couldn't leave yet. Then this guy from my past shows up, an assassin, an' he's got a reputation fer goin' after the people I care 'bout. I figured I oughtta check up on ya. An' when I got there…" he blew out his breath. "Emma better count her blessin's that Sean stopped me, or I'd'a killed her for slappin' ya around like that."

Jubilee stared nervously down at her hands. "I don't even remember the dreams when I wake up," she said. "Paige said I talk in my sleep, sometimes. But I don't remember what I said when I wake up." She looked up at Logan, anguish in her eyes, and Logan felt his heart twist in his chest. "When I first got back, Emma checked me mentally. Probed around in my head. I kept my shields up; I didn't want her seeing…some of the worst stuff. I told her only that Bastion kidnapped me and pumped me for information, and that I escaped with you guys and you brought me back. For the first few days I was back, she excused me from classes and let me do a lot of sleeping. Now…it all seems kind of distant. Fuzzy. I can't even clearly remember a lot of it anymore. It comes back in my dreams, but…I don't remember them clearly, either."

As clearly as if Charles were sitting right there, Logan heard the X-Men's founder's measured, even tones. _Sometimes when extremely traumatic things happen, the mind cannot cope with them, and so blocks them out until the body and mind is recovered enough to deal with the memories. I believe that has happened to you, Logan…_

And now that was happening to Jubilee. Her mind was blocking out the memories of what had happened to her, because she couldn't deal with them. "Probably better for ya, darlin'," he said quietly. "Chuck told me once that some memories are too traumatic to deal with so yer mind'll block 'em out till yer ready t'remember them. Same thing happened t'me; hell, I'm still tryin' t'remember. Don't force it, darlin', y'been through a lot an' ya need time." He looked over at her, just as her stomach let off a loud, very definite growl. And he noticed she was looking drowsy. "Hungry? Tired?"

"A bit," Jubilee scrubbed at her tired, itchy eyes. "And we're gonna haveta find a restroom soon."

He made a decision, and pulled into the parking lot of a motel. "Let's stop here fer a bit, then," he said.

Jubilee sat up. "You don't have to, not for me. If you want to keep going, we can keep—" she began.

Logan sighed. "Ain't just you, darlin, s'me, too. I was drivin' almost all night tryin' ta get up here. I'm tired, hungry, and I could use a break." He grabbed his duffle bag from the back, and led the way to the motel's registration desk, where he paid for a room with two beds, then asked about the closest place to find something to eat.

The room was small, but it had two beds in it, and it was reasonably clean, though Logan could smell strange people under the smells of bleach and disinfectant. Jubilee dropped her duffel bag at the foot of one of the beds and headed straight for the bathroom. Logan busied himself with counting out his change till she came out, and went in himself. When he came out, he said, "Hang here while I go rustle up some grub." She nodded, grabbing the remote to the small TV and switching it on as he left.

He stopped at the nearest fast-food joint he could find and spent several minutes pondering what Jubilee might like. Finally deciding on a burger and fries, he ordered, paid, and headed back to the motel with the food. Jubilee was lying on her bed when he came in, asleep, and for a moment he almost let her sleep. But he could clearly hear her stomach growling, and the food would be cold and unappetizing when she woke up, and maybe she wouldn't eat it. And she needed to eat. "Hey, Jubes," he tapped her shoulder gently. "Food. Come and eat."

They ate in silence, he because he was looking at her and assessing her condition and thinking, she because she was too tired for conversation. As soon as she finished her fries, she plopped back down on the bed and Logan was sure she was asleep before her head even hit the pillow. He finished his own share, then went over to her. Sliding an arm under her knees, he eased the covers out from under her and laid her down on the bed, then covered her with the blanket. She murmured something that might have been 'thanks' and curled up in a fetal position under the covers, and Logan stretched out on the bed next to her, watching her for a long time.

She'd been through too much, too young. She'd grown up too fast in the month she'd been with Bastion. He'd seen her shortly before the whole O:ZT mess started; the girl he was looking at now bore little resemblance to the child he'd seen on that last visit. Then, Jubilee had been carefree, laughing, happy; secure in the knowledge that she was safe and protected and everything was all right. Then she had been kidnapped from the school, right under the noses of the people who were supposed to keep her safe and protect her, and had endured….what? Something that had been so traumatic she had blocked out the memory of it. '_He tried to break her by feeding her illusions of us; when that failed he tried drugging her. Then he mixed the drugs with physical pain and rape.' That was what Jeannie said. What kinda physical pain coulda been done t'her that would be that bad that she blocked it out but didn't hardly leave a mark? What did Bastion do to her?_

He could think of any number of things. And the disgusted him and filled him with horror. _Why did it have to be her?_ he thought in soul-deep anguish. _Why? Oh, darlin', I'm so damn sorry…I should have been there, I promised you I'd be there for you, always…and I wasn't. Will you ever forgive me? _Still agonizing over his own failure, he slipped into an uneasy sleep stretched out on the other bed.

He woke at a soft sound from her bed. Unsure of what had woken him, he stared up at the ceiling for a moment until the sound was repeated. A sob. And the smell of her salty tears brought him to full wakefulness, and he slid out of his bed, going to hers.

She was thrashing on the bed, arms flailing. Even as he watched, they stopped in midair, as if someone had grabbed them, and then they folded tight against her chest, as if wrapped in a straitjacket. Soft whimpering accompanied the movement, and the look on her face made him wince. Unable to bear seeing her in such obvious emotional pain, he reached out to touch her shoulder, to wake her up…and then her mouth opened, and she began to talk.

"No…no, you can't do this to me. Get your hands off me, take this damn straitjacket OFF, get it off, I swear to God, when Wolvie gets here you're gonna be so busted…hey, wait! Where are you taking me? I am so not going anywhere you…ow!" Then a note of panic crept into her voice. "What are you doing with that needle…no you don't…get it away from me, get it away…" Her entire body shuddered backwards, as if trying to avoid something aimed at her…but then she went slack, her body relaxed, and she sighed. There was a short silence, then she whispered, "No. No, that can't be Scott's visor…he could've gotten it anywhere, from any battle scene…Scott's lost them in battle before. Yer a liar, Bastion," she said a little louder. "I know Cyclops. If he's gonna die someday, it ain't gonna be from a loser like you." And then, softer, "I gotta believe that. Gotta keep on believing that. They'll get here. They'll get here and they'll rescue me, Wolvie will rescue me, just like he's always done. No way, Bastion. No way Yer gonna convince me that ya gone and killed everyone while I was sleeping—" she broke off in midsentence. "Wolvie?"

He sat down at the end of her bed, leaned over her. "I'm right here, Jubes. I'm right—" and then he realized her eyes were still closed.

She rambled on. 'No…Bastion…please, not Wolvie. You couldn't have gotten him…" Then, a note of triumph. 'You went too far, pinky! Too flain' far! Any Wolvie I know would die before he begged! Is this what it's all about? Fightin' for humans' right to punish and torture and hate? You can keep yer stinkin' humanity!" her voice had been rising in volume until she was almost shouting it, rising on one elbow until she was almost upright…and then her head snapped over to the side, and her head hit the pillow. Logan gritted his teeth. That violent movement…Bastion must have hit her.

Softer, but no less defiantly, Jubilee spoke again. "Do what you want to me, Bastion! I won't break!" Her head fell back onto the pillow. "what I wouldn't give for the ol' canucklehead t'come slashin' through, bragging, "I'm the best there is at what I do, bub—and what I do ain't pretty! Bastion can't have gotten him—he can't have—I just gotta hang tough. Wolvie will get here. He'll save me. He promised he'd always look after me, always be there when I need him. He'll get here. I just stay angry. That's what he would do."

Logan's head sank into his hands as his elbows rested on his knees. Jubilee had been counting on him to come for her. Because he'd promised. He'd promised he'd be there…and he wasn't.

Her panicked voice rose again, catching his attention. "No…not the straps…don't strap me down…what are you doing now…oh God, help me, save me, somebody, please, please don't let this happen, don't do this to me!" Jubilee went rigid on the bed, her arms coming up to grip the headboard of the bed, her hands curling into fists. Her legs, under the blankets, went stiff, as if she'd just been strapped down. Let go of me…let me up…don't do this to me, please, I'm just a kid, please…" and she screamed out. Softly, though. _A part of her must realize that she's dreamin',_ Logan thought. _Maybe all them times wakin' up t'Emma smackin' her around got it into her head that she mustn't scream when she's dreamin. My god, what did they do to her to make her act like this?_ He watched her face twist in a rictus of agony, and her body went tense as she screamed again. It seemed to go on forever, and he was about to grab her and haul her out of bed if he had to in order to stop the anguished screaming when she went silent. Her body relaxed on the bed for a moment, then an anguished moan escaped her lips. "No more…don't touch me…please, I hurt…oh God, I hurt…hungry, thirsty, can't reach the food cause I hurt too much…help me, somebody, please! Anybody! Wolvie, where are you? Don't forget me, Wolvie, don't leave me alone, please! You're all I have, you're my only hope, don't let me die here!"

With a choked, anguished sob, Logan rose from the end of the bed and flung himself at the door of the motel room, yanking it open and stepping outside into the clean fresh air. He felt as if he were stifling, sitting in that room listening to Jubilee beg him to come get her, to rescue her, to not forget about her. There was nothing he could have done; he hadn't known she was missing, hadn't known she was anywhere other than where she was supposed to be…but he still felt a load of grief and guilt settle on his shoulders because he hadn't known. Hadn't known. It was irrational. There was no way he could have known…but he still felt that somehow, someway, he should have known his little girl was in trouble…

He stepped back into the hotel room after he'd smoked a cigar and calmed himself down. He'd thought about going and waking her up, but he didn't feel equal to trying to wake her up. Chuck had said something once about dreams being how people dealt with issues left from traumatic events when they were awake, and maybe these dreams were Jubilee's way of working through what had happened to her.

She was still asleep, still dreaming, but her body was no longer tense. "I can't believe I made it, I really made it, he's here, he's alive, an' I'm gonna be okay…he'll never let anything happen to me. Never never never again…no, Wolvie, don't look at my wrists, it'll kill you to see those marks the straps left…oh no. You saw them. Oh, God, I can't bear the way he's looking at me right now… he knows…no! No, I can't tell you, you'll go back there to hurt Bastion and you'll be captured and I'll lose you forever…I'd die without you, you're the only one who cares about me, Wolvie, the only one who loves me…Don't ask, Wolvie, please don't ask…I won't tell. I'll never tell. It would hurt you too much."

Logan couldn't stand it anymore. "Hurts more listenin' t'ya suffer through this alone than if ya told me, darlin'," he said quietly, his voice rough with pent-up emotion as he grasped her upper arm gently and drew her to a sitting position. "You can tell me whatever, Jubilee, you know you can. I'll never refuse t'listen." The change in her breathing told him she had woken when he touched her arm, and he wrapped his arms around her, tucking her head under his chin and patting her back gently.

She tried to pull away, scrubbing at the tears on her face. "I'm sorry for waking you; what did I say?"

He refused to let her pull away, refused to let her go. "Nothin', darlin', nothin'. Shh. Don't fight it, let it go." She gave into his embrace; gave into the tears she'd held back for too long. She started to cry; not the harsh, racking sobs of before, but gentle tears of grief and sorrow. Healing tears. He held her for a long time, treasuring the feel of her in his arms, silently vowing again to keep better track of where she was and what she was doing. This would never happen again. He'd never let anything like this happen to her again. She was all he had. Sure, others cared about him, but Jubilee needed him, _loved him_, like he needed and loved her.

And losing her would kill him.

End Notes:

Sorry about the long interval between chapters, everyone! I've been kind of caught up in publishing business and the release and sale of my ebook (if you're under 18, don't ask!) and I'd been waiting for my coauthor to verify some details from Wolverine issues 119-122. This chapter is set right before the events of Uncanny X-Men #, when Sauron paid a surprise visit to the mansion and attacked Logan. I wrote the last two chapters to cover Jubilee's sudden, unexplained re-appearance in this UXM issue, but I think from here I'll leave it in Marvel's most capable hands. The last chapter will be coming hopefully tomorrow, so look for it! Almost finished, folks!


	20. Chapter 20

Chapter 20: Epilogue

Logan dropped his jacket on the end of the bed and ran a hand through his hair as he sat down heavily on the end of his bed. It had been a relatively quiet night; he'd gone out looking for a little trouble at one of the rougher local bars, and hadn't found it. Half an hour ago he'd finally given up and headed back home. Still unwilling to go to bed, he briefly considered going and getting Jubilee (she was visiting right now from the Academy) and dragging her down to the Rec Room for a game of pool, but he decided against it when he glanced at the clock. It was almost 3 in the morning. And Scott had an early-morning Danger Room session planned; six am, to be precise.

Not that he was complaining. Hell, no. After all the unrest surrounding the Zero Tolerance mess for the last year or so, it was nice to have everything back the way they were before. Most of the new kids he and Ororo had been so worried about had eventually figured maybe the mansion wasn't the best place for them, and they'd moved on. Xavier and the contents of the mansion were back, all the familiar stuff he'd gotten used to seeing.

Jubilee, too, was better. After that night a year ago when he'd bundled her out of the Academy after seeing Emma slap Jubilee around (his blood still wanted to boil over at the thought) they had returned to the mansion only to abruptly walk into yet another emergency when Sauron had attacked him on the mansion's premises. Jubilee, still profoundly grateful to him for rescuing her not only from Bastion's Zero Tolerance forces and from the Massachusetts academy, had tangled with Sauron and won. The incident had restored some of her self-confidence, and the nightmares, borne of her feelings of helplessness and guilt, had abated. Logan knew it was too much to hope that they had gone away altogether, but Jubilee had started eating, started being a little more like her usual cheerful self, and soon afterward had asked him to take her back to school.

Logan sighed. He'd gone out looking for trouble tonight; hadn't found it. Maybe a little trouble in the danger room…yanking off his shirt, which stank of cigar and cigarette smoke and cheap beer, he tossed it in the hamper with the other dirty clothes, padded down the hallways through the mansion till he reached the lower levels, and headed for the Danger Room.

He didn't smell any fresh scents in the corridor outside the Danger Room, so it was something of a surprise for him to see that the simulator was being used. And the code flashing on the panel was, of all people, Jubilee's. Curious, he went up to the control room and looked down through the clearsteel window to the simulator below.

The Danger Room was set up to look like some sort of medical lab. Logan would have said that it looked like Hank's medlab, except for the heavy metal table bolted to the floor, and nearby, a chair similarly bolted down. Both apparatus were bristling with straps. And sitting in the chair was a holographic image of Bastion, strapped down and immobilized..

Jubilee was standing in front of the chair. Just standing, not doing anything but looking, and she was dressed in shorts and a pajama camisole top that left a lot of bare skin showing. Logan knew she'd been talking to Hank about having some scars removed, but he didn't know what or where they were. Now, with her standing right in the cold, stark white light of the Danger room wearing nothing but shorts and a tank top, he could see the circular burn marks from electrified electrodes on her shoulder blades, at the top of her neck half-hidden by her hair, and from the way she was rubbing absent-mindedly at her upper chest and her hips, there might have been some there too.

"How could you do this to me?" she said finally, softly. "I'm a kid. We just found out that you had the Professor back there in the same base I was imprisoned in…and I never knew. Why not him? Why me? WHY ME?" she suddenly screamed, running to one row of cabinets and yanking their doors open. Logan saw the cabinet contained surgical instruments; scalpels, electrodes, bandages, forceps, syringes and other instruments…and then she flung open another cabinet, and he saw instruments that definitely didn't belong in a medical lab. A car battery. Thick rubber hose. Something that looked like a policeman's nightstick. Long, thin canes, a wicked-looking leather whip, some shorter leather straps with handles.

Jubilee saw them, and she just seemed to snap. She began filling her hands with those things, throwing them to the cold, white-tiled floor, yanking out drawers and dumping their contents onto the floor. Logan flinched as he saw a whole drawer full of what some would call 'adult toys' but that he knew Jubilee would see as torture instruments. Her eyes were glowing blue with a cold rage, rainbow sparkles dancing around her form, as she swept an arm across the countertops, sending jars of sterile swabs, tissues, latex gloves, and other items crashing to the floor.

Logan sat back. He had been wondering when this was going to come out; Jubilee had finally gotten past the hurt, the pain, the shame and terror and humiliation of what had been done to her and was releasing the pent up rage inside her by wrecking the lab where she had been tortured.

She grabbed a scalpel, walked over to the holographic image of Bastion, and held it up to the hologram's face. "Remember this?" she hissed. "Remember what your pet doctors did with this? I should do this to you!" She held it up, her fist shaking as it gripped the tiny instrument, threatening the holographic projection of the enemy who had stolen her innocence and scarred her soul.

Logan leaned forward. "Do it, Jubilee," he whispered, even though he knew she couldn't hear him "Do it. Give into that anger. You need to so you can heal."

She held the scalpel to Bastion's face for a long time, fist shaking as she stood torn between her desire for revenge and her own normally peaceful inner nature. Logan could see her inner conflict,. Wished he could help her, take away the pain and anguish and grief she was feeling, but this was her own private trip into hell, and only she could take that trip.

She spun away suddenly, flinging away the scalpel. "I can't!" she howled in anguish. Even now, after you hurt me so badly…and I know you're not real, but I still can't! What's wrong with me!"

The Danger Room lit up in multicolored plasmoids as Jubilee unleashed her power, blasting the cabinets, the table, the mess of implements on the floor. Colored lightning crawled up the walls, leaving blackened scorch marks on the cold white tile; scalpels and other sharp instruments went flying through the air, half-destroyed. When Jubilee couldn't find anything else to destroy, she sank to her knees on the floor, staring numbly at the devastation around her. Bastion still sat in the chair impassively, in the midst of the devastation.

Logan left the control room and entered the main simulator. She didn't turn around, but he knew somehow that she knew someone was there…and she knew who that someone was. "I made a mess, didn't I, Wolvie?" she said quietly, picking up a charred, blackened, barely-recognizable scalpel.

Logan eyed the room. "Yes, ya did," he agreed. "But ya hadda right to." He walked over and sat beside her.

Jubilee sighed and looked up at the holographic Bastion. "You saw?" she waved the scalpel in the hologram's direction.

"Yep."

"I couldn't. Even after all he'd done to me, and I know that's a hologram sitting there in front of me…I still couldn't."

"I know."

"Why?" Her voice was soft, anguished. "Why can't I? What's wrong with me? If I was you, you wouldn't hesitate. Why can't I?"

"You ain't me." Logan's voice was just as soft. "Yer made o' stronger stuff, Jubes. You can control yourself. I can't. S' why we get along so well; you got strengths I don't."

"And you have strengths I don't."

He nodded. "Yeah. Jubes…killin' ain't easy. It ain't supposed t'be easy. Every time you kill someone, it leaves a scar on your soul. I never want you to know what that feels like. Way back when, when ya had yer parents' killer dead in yer sights…and ya didn't kill him…I knew you'd never be able to. You know how precious life is, Jubilee; you'll always respect that. Me?" he sighed. "I lived too long; I seen too many bad things happen to good people. I don't respect the life o' those that don't respect other peoples lives. I've killed before, and I'll kill again. And while I might regrets some o' them killin's, there's a lot I don't regret at all." He stood, going to the chair where the holographic Bastion still sat silently. Popping his claws, he drove them forward, putting the entire weight of his body behind the thrust, and plunged his claws o the hilt into Bastion's chest. Blood welled up around the base of his claws, and the holographic figure gave a funny grunt before it's head sagged and it 'died'. Jubilee watched expressionlessly as Logan withdrew his claws, the simulated blood disappeared, and he came to sit beside her again.

"All the time I was here…" Jubilee's voice cracked a little as her waved hand took in the entire messed-up lab. "When the pain and terror got too much to bear, and I wanted to give up, I wanted to just tell him what he wanted to know so he'd leave me alone…I kept hearing your voice, you telling me to hang on, I couldn't tell, you all were depending on me and I was stronger than I knew…and just thinking about you gave me the strength to hold on a little longer, until they got tired of hurting me and stopped and let me recover. There was a little voice away back in my head that kept tellin' me you weren't going to come, you'd never find me and I'd die there…but I kept clinging to that hope, kept hanging on to the hope that someday, somehow, I'd see you again.

"And then I saw you all come in, and Bastion's guards sent you to the incineration level…I thought I'd lost you. Then you guys came bustin' outta the lower levels…I'd never been so glad to see anything in my life." Her voice broke again, and she took a deep, steadying breath. "Bastion closed the doors. I saw which button he'd pushed, and I ran over there and pushed it to open the doors again. I saw you escape right before Bastion started beating me. And I was lying there feeling him hit me…god, it hurt so much…but as long as you were free it didn't matter what he did to me anymore. I wanted you to turn around, wanted you to come get me and take me away with you…but I knew if you came back in you might not get out again…so I willed you to go, go and get away, and never come back. And then Bastion told his guards to take me back to my cell, and not give me anything to eat or drink anymore…I thought I was going to die. And all I could think about was being sorry I'd ever told you I'd loved you, never told you how much I care about you, how much I respect and admire you and how much hope just the thought of you gave me when I had hit bottom…Logan," she said softly, "I love you. I don't know if I told you that before, but I do. You're all I have. Please," her voice trembled a little. "Please don't ever stop loving me."

Logan couldn't speak for the tightness in his throat and the ache in his heart. Instead he wrapped an arm across her shoulders and hugged her, tightly. "Never. I'll never leave you," he said. "Even if I can't be there fer ya physically, I'll never stop thinkin' 'bout ya, lovin' ya. Understand?"

She nodded mutely.

They sat that way for a time, neither one speaking, just being there for each other, as they had som many times in the past. Logan was the first one to break the silence. "Cyke's got a Danger room session planned for six."

Jubilee groaned. "Don't suppose he'd let me off?" It was a rhetorical question; they both knew he wouldn't. She climbed to her feet. "I guess I'd better get to bed, then. Computer, end simulation." She headed for the door. "And I guess I'd better wipe the recording cameras so no one knows what I was doing here. Jean and the Professor might get a little concerned with this revenge fantasy."

Logan grinned at her. "Don't worry; it's healthy. But if you're that worried, I'll wipe the automatic session-recordings and the logs. You go on up to bed."

"Thanks, Wolvie," Jubilee gave him a warm, happy smile. "You're the best."

"Aw, get on with ya." Logan kept the smile in place as Jubilee left the room and the doors closed, but by the time he turned toward the empty Danger room, the smile was gone, replaced by a cold, enraged mask. "Computer; begin simulation again." The lab sprang back into existence; the same table, cabinets stocked with instruments…and Bastion, sitting strapped into the chair. His lips curved into an unpleasant smile. "Computer. Bastion hologram, full human function."

The Bastion hologram in the chair began to struggle against the straps. "You won't get away with this, mutie! Soon enough my Zero Tolerance forces will find us, and crush you where you stand."

Logan stalked toward the cabinets, ignoring the threat. "Jubilee couldn't hurt you, even as a hologram," he growled, yanking open the cabinet that held the medical instruments. Selecting a scalpel, he returned to the Bastion-hologram. "I ain't gonna hold back. Let's see how well you do when you're the one gettin' tortured." The scalpel sank into flesh. Holographic flesh, but flesh nonetheless. Holographic blood welled up around the thin metal blade. Logan smiled thinly in satisfaction, and continued cutting…

Scott blinked in surprise as he and Jean stepped into the Danger Room. "Logan? You're usually not this early."

Logan turned away from the punching bag he was assaulting and smiled, a feral, unpleasant smile. "I had something I wanted to do," he said.

Scott blinked, then shrugged. 'Okay." He turned as the others straggled in, one by one, most still yawning. Jubilee came in last, rubbing hr eyes. When she caught Logan's eye, she raised an eyebrow in silent question. He nodded back, the barest of movements. She smiled at him, then turned her attention to Scott as he explained the morning simulation.

Logan relaxed as he too focused his attention on Scott. Jubilee would be fine. He was sure of it.

End Notes:

That's it, folks! That's all for Zero Tolerance! Hope you all enjoyed the ride!

Next up: I'll be finishing up 'Eternity In An Hour.' I lost the mailing list of names that wanted to read new chapters, and anyway some people have expressed a disinterest in reading it, so I'll send it out to anyone who asks for it!

See you then!

Amanda


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